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POEMS 

By JOHN DRYDElSr 




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taskinstead of the dreadful time it usually is. No 34. 






POEMS BY JOHN DRYDEN. 



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INTEODUCTION. 



John Dryden was born in Northamptonshire, at i 
Al^ winkle All Saints, on the 9th of August, 1631. ■' 
His grandfather was Sir Erasmus Dryden, Bart.,-1 
of Canons Ashby, who died a year after John j 
Dryden's birth. The eldest son of Sir Erasmus ■} 
was named John, and became head of the family, ' 
as Sir John Dryden of Canons Ashby; the third j 
son was named Erasmus, who, as a younger son, i 
was provided for with a little estate at Blakesley, • 
worth <£60 a year, equivalent to about £250 a ] 
year in present buying power. Blakesley was j 
close to the headquarters of the Pickering family \ 
at Tichmarsh. Erasmus Dryden married, in Octo- ] 
ber, 1630, before the death of his father, Mary, J 
daughter of the E-ev. Henry Pickering, Pector of ii 
Aldwinkle All Saints. The Drydens and Pickerings ; 
were neighbours and intimate friends. Not only j 
did Erasmus Dryden marry a daughter of the Pev. i 
Henry Pickering, but a sister of his married the i 
Pev. Henry Pickering's elder brother, Sir John, j 
The eldest son of that marriage was Sir Gilbert ! 
Pickering, who was allied, therefore, by double \ 



t) INTEODTJCTIOISr. 

cousinshipto the poet, and who became trusted in the 
Commonwealth by Cromwell a-s one of his ardent 
supporters. That was, in fact, the fiery Sir Gilbert, 
under whom the poet began his »active life in the 
world. John Dryden, the poet, was the first child 
of Erasmus and Mary Dryden : first child in a 
family of fourteen. His mother had gone to her 
old home for awhile before his birth, and he was 
born, therefore, in the parsonage at Aldwinkle All 
Saints. 

After some teaching at Tichmarsh, young John 
Dryden was sent to Westminster School, then under 
Dr. Busby, and at Westminster he received the 
whole of his school training before he went on, at 
the age of nineteen, with a scholarship, to Trinity 
College, Cambridge. John Locke, born in August, 
1632, one year younger than Dryden, was also sent 
to Westminster School, and the two boys, who as 
men became chiefs in the two opposite ranks of 
political opinion, were school -fellows, probably 
class-fellows. Dryden left for Cambridge in 1650, 
Locke for Oxford in 1651. At the age of eighteen, 
before leaving Westminster, Dryden had written a 
poem on the death by small-pox of an old West- 
minster boy, the Marquis of Hastings, who died at 
the age of twenty-one. That piece usually stands 
first in a collection of Dryden's poems, but it is 
young imitation of what then was the fashion for 
strained ingenuity, interesting only as an illustration 



INTEODTJCTION. T \ 

of the length to which the fashion of the day might ■] 
carry a young writer in the decorative treatment \ 
of small-pox pustules. - 

*' So many spots like nseves on Venus' soil ; i 

One jewel set off with so many a foil; I 

Blisters witli pride swelled, whicli through 's flesh did? i 
sprout, i 

Like rosebuds stuck in the lily skin about. 1 

«4]ach little pimple bad a tear in it, '\ 

To wail tbe fault its rising did commit ; ' 

Wbicb, rebel-like, with its own lord at strife, ' 

Thus made an insurrection 'gainst his life.. 
Or were these gems sent to adorn his skin^ 
The cabinet of a richer soul within ? 
No comet need foretell his change drew on, 
Whose corpse did seem a constellation." i 

j 

Dry den graduated at Cambridge as Bachelor of" \ 

Arts in January, 1654. In the following June his ^ " 
father died, and he inherited, as eldest son, two- • 
thirds of the estate at Blakesley, his mother re- - - 
taining a third for life. The books of his College- 
show that in April, 1655, Dryden lost his scholar- j 
ship because he had ceased to reside at Cambridge.-. ^ 
He had, in fact, without proceeding to his M-A.^., ^ 
gone to London to reside, probably as secretary^, i 
with his cousin. Sir Gilbert Pickering, and look for- - ^ 
employment under Cromwell through Sir Gilbert's '\ 
influence. '\ 

After he had been three or four years in \ 
London, seeing nothing to shake his faith in the - 



>F 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

Coin mon wealth, or make him question the prir^ 
ciples in which he had been bred, the death o 
Cromwell, on the 3rd of September, 1658, caused 
Dryden to write the Heroic Stanzas, with which 
this volume begins. .The poem on the death of 
Cromwell was Dryden's first work of importance as 
a poet. Nothing has come down to us between it 
and his school-boy verses. When he wrote these 
Heroic Stanzas, Dryden had completed his twenty- 
seventh year. Keats when he died was little more 
than twenty-five years old. There is much differ- 
ence in the pace of development in difierent minds. 
Dryden's power matured slowly, was ripest in its 
latest utterances ; age brought with it no debility 
of mind. 

After the death of Cromwell it became evident 
that he alone had been the pillar of the Coramon- 
'v^ealth. In the argument that followed, Dryden — 
by natui'al bias a supporter of authority, who had 
been bred from childhood in the opposite school of 
thought — was for the first time put to questioning 
within himself. He took the side of authority to 
which his way of thought inclined, and thenceforth 
Sill his opinion on public matters ran consistently 
in one direction. He accepted the monarchy and 
the doctrine of royal supremacy in " Astrsea 
Redux " ; he wrote his " Annus Mirabilis " — 
1666 — to support the credit of the King; he 
defended the King's policy in " Absalom and 






INTRODtrCTION. 9^ ^ 

it 

Achitophel," when it was desired to quell the ! 

opposition to the Duke of York's succession to the ^ 

throne by striking down the Earl of Shaftesbury, ] 

most active of the King's opponents on that ques- i 

tion. Shaftesbury was sent to the Tower, charged ! 

with high treason, on the 2nd of July, 168L ';] 

" Absalom and Achitophel," a political pamphlet \ 

in verse of the utmost vigour, was published on } 

the 17th of November, some days before the ex- j 

pected trial. On the 24th of Novem'ber, the bill "] 

of indictment against Shaftesbury was thrown out It 

by the grand jury. The people rejoiced. A medal I 

was struck. Dryden returned to the attack with i 

a poem called " The Medal," which appeared in J 

March, 1682. There were replies, and among ;' 

them was a scurrilous attack by Shadwell, for •'■ 

which Dryden took his revenge in the vigorous 1 

satire, " Mac Flecknoe," which was published in 1 

October, 1682. In the next month Dryden pub- ) 

lished his " Religio Laici," in which he dealt with ] 

religious controversy as a Protestant whose point ^ 

of view upon the surrender of private opinion to ; 
the Church authority was altogether Catholic. As 

the question between the Churches became more "; 

and more urgent, Dryden, still following his ] 

natural bias, found that his place was in the Roman | 

Catholic Church, and four years and a half after 1 

the publication of the " Religio Laici," there ', 

followed, in April, 1687, "The Hind and the | 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

Pantlier," a lay argument in verse for the point 
^i view of the Roman Catholic in matters of 
•authority. 

Of the minor poems included in this volume, it 
is enough to add that the famous " Alexander's 
Feast" was written, in 1697, for a musical society 
that annually set to original music a poem written 
for the occasion, and produced the result at a great 
public concert on St. Cecilia's Day, the 22nd of 
November. Dry den died in 1700, on the 1st of 
May. Johnson's Life of him is^in No. 37 of this 
Xibrary. 

H. M. . 



HEROIC STANZAS, I 

CONSECRATED TO THE MEMORY OF HIS HIGH-^ 
NESS, OLIVER, I 

LATE LOED PEOTECTOE OF THIS COMMONWEALTH, &C. 'i 

Written after the celebrating of his funeral. ' }, 



1. 
And now 'tis time ; for their officious haste 

Who would before have borne him to the sky, 
Like eager Romans ere all rites were past, 

Did let too soon the sacred eagle fly. 

2. 

Though our best notes are treason to his fame 
J oined with the loud applause of public voice, 

Since Heaven what praise we offer to his name 
Hath rendered too authentic by its choice ; 

3. 

Though in his praise no arts can liberal be, 

Since they, whose muses have the highest flown, 

Add not to his immortal memory, 

But do an act of friendship to their own ; 

4. 

Yet 'tis our duty and our interest too 

Such monuments as we can build to raise, 

Lest all the world prevent what we should do 
And claim a title in him by their praise. 

5. 

How shall I then begin or where conclude 
To draw a fame so truly circular ? 



12 I>RYDENS POEMS. 

For in a round what order can be shewed, 
Where all the parts so equal-perfect are 1 

6. 
His grandeur he derived from Heaven alone, 

For he was great, ere Fortune made him so ; 
And wars, like mists that rise against the sun, 

Made him but greater seem, not greater grow, 

7. 
No borrowed bays his temples did adorn, 

But to our crown he did fresh jewels bring j 
Nor was his virtue poisoned, soon as born, 

With the too early thoughts of being King. 



Fortune, that easy mistress of the young. 
But to her ancient servants coy and hard, 

Him at that age her favourites ranked among 
When she her best-loved Pompey did discard, 

9. 
He, private, marked the faults of others' sway 

And set as sea-marks for himself to shun ; 
Not like rash monarchs, who their youth betray 

By acts their age too late would wish undone, 

10. 
And yet dominion was not his design : 

We owe that blessing not to him but Heaven, 
Which to fair acts unsought rewards did join, 

Kewards that less to him than. us were given. 

11. 
Our former chiefs, like sticklers of the war. 

First sought to inflame the parties, then to poise, 
The quarrel loved, but did the cause abhor. 

And did not strike to hurt, but make a noise. 



HEROIC STANZAS. 13 

12. 
War, our consumption, was their gainful trade ; 

We inward bled, whilst they prolonged our pain ; 
He fought to end our fighting, and assayed 

To stanch the blood by breathing of the vein. 

13. 
Swift and resistless through the land he passed, 

Like that bold Greek who did the East subdue. 
And made to battles such heroic haste 

As if on wings of victory he flew. 

14. 
He fought, secure of fortune as of fame, 

Till by new maps the Island might be shown 
Of conquests, which he strewed where'er he came, 

Thick as the galaxy with stars is sown. 

15. 
His palms, though under weights they did not stand, 

Still thrived ; no winter could his laurels fade : 
Heaven in his portrait showed a workman's hand 

And drew it perfect, yet without a shade. 

16. 
Peace was the prize of all his toil and care, 

Which war had banished and did now restore 
Bologna's walls thus mounted in the air 

To seat themselves more surely than before. 

17. 
Her safety rescued Ireland to him owes ; 

And treacherous Scotland, to no interest true, 
Yet blessed that fate which did his arms dispose 

Her land to civilise as to subdue. 

18. 
Nor was he like those stars which only shine 
When to pale mariners they storms portend ; 



DRYDEN'S POEMS. 

He had his calmer influence, and his mien 
Did love and majesty together blend. 

19. 
Tis true his countenance did imprint an awe 

And naturally all souls to his did bow, 
As wands of divination downward draw 

And point to beds where sovereign gold doth grow 

20. 
When, past all offerings to Feretrian Jove, 

He Mars deposed, and arms to gowns made yield, 
Successful counsels did him soon approve 

As fit for close intrigues as open field. 

21. 
To suppliant Holland he vouchsafed a peace, 

Our once bold rival in the British main. 
Now tamely glad her unjust claim to cease 

And buy our friendship with her idol, gain. 

22. 
Fame of the asserted sea, through Europe blown, 

Made France and Spain ambitious of his love ; 
Each knew that side must conquer he would own 

And for him fiercely as for empire strove. 

23. 
No sooner was the Frenchman's cause embraced 
Than the light Monsieur the grave Don out- 
weighed : 
His fortune turned the scale where'er *twas cast, 
Though Indian mines were in the other laid. 

24. 
When absent, j^et we conquered in his right : 

For, though some meaner artist's skill were shown 
In mingling colours or in placing light, 

Yt t still the fair designment was his own. 



<AT'.-y! ,, 



HEEOTC STANZAS. 15^ 

25. j 

For from all tempers he could service draw^, ' 

The worth of each with its alloy he knew,, I 

And, as the confident of Nature, saw . 1 

How she complexions did divide and hrew : : ) 

^^- j 

Or he their single virtues did survey , 

By intuition in his own large breast, > 

Where all the rich ideas of them lav i 

That were the rule and measure to the rest. « 

27- \ 

When such heroic virtue Heaven sets out, '^ 

The stars, like Commons, sullenly obey, J 

Because it drains them, when it comes about, •« 

And therefore is a tax they seldom pay. .^ 

28. ] 
From this high spring our foreign conquests flow 1 

Which yet more glorious triumphs do portend,, 

Since their commencement to his arms they owe, ] 

If springs as high as fountains may ascend. J 

■i 

29. { 
He made us freemen of the Continent J 

Whom Nature did like captives treat before, ^ 

To nobler preys the English Lion sent, ; 

And taught him first in Belgian walks to roar. ] 

■;< 

30. ] 

That old unquestioned pirate of the land, "] 
Proud Eome, with dread the fate of Dunkirk hear^ '1 

And trembling wished behind more Alps to stand, ; 

Although an Alexander were her guard. , 

31. ' 
By his command we boldly crossed the Line i 

And bravely fought where southern stars arise ; 



16 dkyden's poems. 

We traced the far- fetched gold unto the mine, 
And that which bribed our fathers, made our prize, 

32. 

Such was our Prince, yet owned a soul above 
The highest acts it could produce to show : 

Thus poor mechanic arts in public move, 
Whilst the deep secrets beyond practice go. 

33. 
Nor died he when his ebbing fame went less, 

But when fresh laurels courted him to live ; 
He seemed but to prevent some new success. 

As if above what triumphs earth could give. 

34. 

His latest victories still thickest came, 
As near the centre motion does increase ; 

Till he, pressed down by his own weighty name. 
Did, like the Vestal, under spoils decease. 

35. 
But first the Ocean as a tribute sent 

That giant-prince of all her watery herd ; 
And the Isle, when her protecting G-enius went. 

Upon his obsequies loud sighs conferred. 

36. 
No civil broils have since his death arose. 

But faction now by habit does obey ; 
And wars have that respect for his repose 

As winds for halcyons when they breed at sea. 

37. 

His ashes in a peaceful urn shall rest ; 

His name a great example stands to show 
How strangely high endeavours may be blessed 

Where piety and valour jointly go. 



i'7 



ANNUS MIRABILIS: 

THE YEAR OF WONDERS, 1666. 
AN HISTORICAL POEM; 

CONTAINING 

THE PROGRESS AND VARIOUS SUCCESSES OF OUR NAVAL 
WAR WITH HOLLAND, 

■UliDER THE CONDUCT OF HIS HIGHNESS PRINCE RUPERT AND HIS 
GRACE THE DUKE OF ALBEMARLE, 

AND DESCEIBING THE EIRE OF LONDON. 



TO THE METROPOLIS OF GREAT BRITAIN, 

THE MOST RENOWNED AND LATE FLOURISHING CITY OF LONDON, IN ITS 
REPRESENTATIVES THE LORD MAYOR AND COURT OF ALDERMEN, 
THE SHERIFFS AND COMMON COUNCH OF IT. 

As perhaps I am the first who ever presented a work of this nature 
to the metropolis' of any nation, so is it likewise consonant to justice, 
that he who was to give the first example of such a dedication 
should begin it with that City which has set a pattern to all others of 
true loyalty, invincible courage, and unshaken constancy. Other 
cities have been praised for the same virtues, but I am nuich deceived 
if any have so dearly purchased their reputation : their fame has been 
won them by cheaper tibials than an expensive though necessary war, 
a consuming pestilence, and a more consuming fire. To submit your- 
selves with that humility to the judgments of Heaven, and at the 
same time to raise yourselves with tliat vigour above all human 
enemies ; to be combated at once from above jmd from below; to be 
struck down and to triumph : I know not whether such trials have 
been ever paralleled in any nation ; the rescjlution and successes of 
them never can be. Never had prince or peojile more mutual reason 
to love each other, if suftering for each other can endear aftection. 
You have come together a pair of matchless lovers, thiough many 
difficulties ; he, through a long exile, various traverses of fortune, and 
the interposition of many i-ivals, who violently ravished and withheld 
you from him : and certainly you have had your share in suif'erings. 
But Providence has cast upon you want of trade, tliat you might ap- 
pear bountiful to your country's necessities ; and the rest of your 



18 DRYDEN S POEMS. 

afflictions are not more the effects of God's displeasure (frequent ex- 
aiiii-iles of them having been in tlie reign of the inost excellent princes) 
than occasions for the manifesting of your Christian and civil virtues. 
To you, therefore, this Year of Wonders is justly dedicated, because 
you have made it so : you, who are to stand a wonder to all years and 
ages, and who have built yourselves an immortal monument on your 
own ruins. You are now a phnenix in her ashes, and, as far as 
humanity can aiiproach, a great emblem of the suffering Deity. But 
Heaven never made so much piety and virtue, to leave it miserable. I 
have heard indeed of some virtuous persons who have ended unfor- 
tunately, but never of any virtuous nation. Providence is engaged 
too deeply, when the cause becomes so general ; and I cannot imagine 
it has resolved the ruin of that people at home, which it has blessed 
abroail with such successes. I am, therefore, to conclude that your 
sufforings are at an end, and that one part of my poem has not been 
more an history of your destruction, than the other a prophecy of 
your restoration. The accomjilishment of which happiness, as it is 
the wish of all true Englishmen, so is by none more passionately de- 
sired than by 

The greatest of your admirers and, most humble of your servants, 

John Drybbn, 



AN ACCOUNT OF THE ENSUING FOEM, 
in a letter to the honourable sir robert howaeiy, 
Sir, 

I am so many ways obliged to you and so little able to return 
your favours that, like those who owe too much, I can only live by 
getting farther into your debt. You have not only been careful of 
my fortune, which was the effect of your nobleness, but 3'ou have 
been solicitous of my reputation, which is that of your kindness. It 
is not lung since I gave yau the trouble of perusing a play for me|; 
and now, instead of an aclcnowledgment, I have given you a greater 
in the correction of a poem. But since you are to bear this persecu- 
tion, I will at least give you the encouragement of a martyr ; you 
could never sufter in a nobler cause. For I have chosen the most 
heroic subject which any poet could desire : I have taken upon me to 
describe the motives, the beginning, progress, and successes of a most 
just and necessary war ; in it the care, management, and prudence of 
our King ; the conduct and valour of a Roj^al Admiral and of two in- 
comparable Generals ; the invincible courage of our captains and sea- 
men, and three glorious victories, the result of all. After this, I have 
in the fire the most deplorable, but withal the greatest argument that 
can be imagined ; the destruction being so swift, so sudden, so vast 



•< 



ANNUS MXBABILIS. 19 

and miserable, as nothing can parallel In story. The former part of 
this poem, relating to the war, is but a due expiation for my not 
serving my King and country in it. All gentlemen are almost obliged 
to it : and I know no reason we should give that advantage to the 
commonalty of England, to be foremost in brave actions, which the 
noblesse of France would never suffer in their peasants. I should 
not have written this but to a person who has been ever forward to 
appear in all employments whither liis honour and generosity have 
called him. The latter part of my poem, which describes the fire, I 
owe, first, to the piety and fatherly affection of our Monarch to his 
suffering subjects ; and, in the second place, to the courage, loyalty, 
and magnanimity of the City ; both which were so conspicuous that I 
have^yanted words to celebrate them as they deserve. I have called 
my poem historical, not epic, though both the actions and actors are 
as much heroic as any poem can contain. But since the action is not 
properly one, nor that accomplished in the last successes, I h,ave 
judged it too bold a title for a few stanzas, which are little more in 
nunrber than a single Iliad or the longest of the JEneids. For this 
reason (I mean not of length, but broken action, tied too severely to 
the laws of history) I am apt to agree with those who rank Lucan 
rather among historians in verse than epic poets ; in wliose room, if I 
am not deceived, Silius Italicus, though a worse writer, may more 
justly be admitted. I have chosen to write my poem in quatrains or 
stanzas of four in alternate rhyme, because I have ever judged them 
moi-e noble and of greater dignity both for the soun,d and number than 
any other verse in use amongst us ; in which I am sure I have your 
approbation. The learned languages have certainly a great advantage 
of us in not being tied to the slavery of any rhyme, and were less con- 
strained in the quantity of every syllable, which they might vary 
with spondees or dactyls, besides so many other helps of grammatical 
figures for the lengthening or abbreviation of them, than the modern 
are in the close of that one syllable, which often confines, and more 
often corrupts, the sense of all the rest. But in this necessity of our 
rhymes, I have always found the couplet verse most easy (though not 
so proper for this occasion), for there the work is sooner at an end, 
every two lines concluding the labour of the poet ; but in quatrains 
he is to carry it farther on, and not only so, but to bear along in his^ 
head the troublesome sense of four lines together. For those who 
write correctly in this kind must needs acknowledge that the last line 
of the stanza is to be considered in the composition of the first. 
Neither can we glTS ourselves the liberty of making any part of a 
verse for the sake of rhyme, or concluding with a word which is not 
current English, or using the variety of female rhymes, all which our 
fathers practised. And for the female rhymes, they are still in use 
amongst other nations : with the Italian in every line, with the 



20 dryden's poems. 

Spaniard promiscuously, with the French alternately, as those who have 
read the "Alaric," the "Pucelle," or any of their latter ])oems, will 
agiee with me. And besides this, they write in Alexandrines or verses 
of six feet, such as, amongst us, is the old translation of Homer by 
Chapman ; all wliich by lengthening of their chain makes the sphei-e 
of their activity the larger. I have dwelt too long upon the choice of 
my stanza, which you may remember is much better defended in the 
Preface to " Gondibert ;" and therefore I will ha.sten to acquaint you 
with my endeavours in the writing. In general T will only say I have 
never yet seen the description of any naval fight in the proper terms 
which are used at sea; and if there be any such in another language, 
as that of Lucan in the third of his " Pharsalia," yet I could not avail 
myself of it in the English ; the terms of arts in every tongue bearing 
more of the idiom of it than any other words. We hear, indeed, 
among our poets of the thundering of guns, the smoke, the disorder 
and the slaughter ; but all these are common notions. And certainly 
as those who in a logical dispute keep in general terms would hide 
a fallacy, so those who do it in any poetical description would veil 
their ignorance. 

" Descriptas servare vices operumque colores 
Cur ego, .<« nequeo ignoroque, poeta salutor ? " 

For my own part, if I had little knowledge of the sea, yet I have 
thought it no shame to learn ; and if I liave made some few mistakes, 
it is only, as you can bear me witness, because I have wanted oppor- 
tunity to correct them, the whole poem being first written, and now 
sent you, from a place where I have not so much as the converse of any 
seaman. Yet though the trouble I had in writing it was great, it was 
more than recompensed by the pleasure ; I found myself so warm in 
celebrating the praises of military men, two such especially as the 
Piince and General, that it is no wonder if they inspired me v,ith 
thoughts above my ordinary level. And I am well satisfied, that as 
they are incomparably the best subject I have ever had, excepting only 
the Eoyal Family, so also that this I have written of them is much 
better than what I have perfornied on any other. J have been forced 
to help out other arguments ; but this has been bountiful to me : they 
have been low and barren of praise, and I have exalted them and made 
them fruitful ; but Yiere— Omnia s-ponte sun reddit justlssimct tellus. I 
have had a large, a fair, and a pleasant field ; so fertile that, without 
my cultivating, it has given me two harvests in a summer, and in both 
oppressed the reaper. All other greatness in subjects is only counter- 
feit ; it will not endure the test of danger ; the greatness of arms is 
only real. Other greatness burdens a nation with its weight ; this 
supports it with its strength. And as it is the happiness of the age, 
60 ia it the peculiar goodness of the best of kings, that we may praise 



ANNUS MIRABILIS. 21 

nis subjects without offending him. Doubtless it proceeds from a just ] 

confidence of his own virtue, which the lustre of no other can be so \ 

great as to darken in him ; for the good or the valiant are never safely ^ 

praised under a bad or a degenerate prince. But to return from this j 

digression to a fartlier account of my poem : I must crave leave to tell ; 

you that, as I have endeavoured to adorn it with noble thoughts, so 't 

much more to express tliose thoughts with elocution. Tlie composi- ^ 

tion of all poems is or ought to be of wit ; and wit in the poet, or wit- f 

writing (if you will give me leave to use a school distinction), is no '} 

other than the faculty of imagination in the writer, wliich, like a .,{ 

nimble spaniel, beats over and ranges through the field of memorj"- till | 

it springs the quarry it hunted after ; or, witliout metaphor, which '''i 

searthes over all the memory for the species or ideas of those things ] 

which it designs to represent. Wit written is that which is well 
defined, the happy result of thought, or product of imagination. But 

to proceed from wit in the general notion of it to the proper wit of an i 

heroic or historical poem : I judge it chiefly to consist in the deliglitful •*. 

imaging of persons, actions, passions, or things. 'Tis not the jerk or j 

sting of an epigram, nor the seeming contradiction of a poor antithesis i 

(the delight of an ill-judging audience in a play of rhyme), nor the jingle ; 

of a more poor paronomasia ; neitlier is it so much tlie morality of a j 

grave sentence, affected bj'^ Lucan, but more sparingly used by Virgil ; j 

but it is some lively and apt description, dressed in such colours of ■; 

speech that it sets before your eyes the absent object as perfectly and ■ '] 

more delightfully than nature. So then the first happiness of the '^ 

poet's imagination is properly invention, or finding of the thought; ,\ 

the second is fancy, or the variation, driving, or moulding of that "; 

thought as the judgment represents it proper to the subject ; the third J 

is elocution, or the art of clothing and adorning that thought so found '4 

and varied, in apt, significant, and sounding words. The quickness of / 

the imagination is seen in the invention, the fertility in the fancy, « 

and the accuracy in the expression. For the two first of these Ovid 'i 

is famous amongst the poets ; for the latter, Virgil. Ovid images more , 

often the movements and affections of the mind, either combating be- (1 

tween two conti-ary passions, or extremely discomposed by one ; his ' 

words, therefore, are the least part of his care ; for he pictures nature ij 

in disorder, with which the study and choice of words is inconsistent. ; 

This is the proper wit of dialogue or discourse, and consequently of the J 

drama, where all that is said is to be supposed the effect of sudden 4 

thought, which, though it excludes not the quickness of wit in re- 'I 

partees, yet admits not a too curious election of words, too frequent S. 

allusions, or use of tropes, or in fine anything that shows remoteness *, 

of thought or labour in the writer. On the other side, Virgil speaks I 

not so often to us in the person of another, lik Ovid, but in Ids own ; :2 

he relates almost all things as from himself, and thereby gains more i 



22 DE,TDEN''S POEMfci. 

liberty than the other to express his thoughts with all the graces of 
elocution, to write more figuratively, and to confess as well the labour 
as the force of his imagination. Though he describes his Dido well 
and naturally, in the violence of her passions, yet he must yield in 
that to the Myrrha, the Byblis, the Altluea of Ovid. For as great an 
admirer of him as I atn, I must acknowledge that, if I see not more of 
their souls than I see of Dido's, at least I have a greater concernment 
for them ; and that convinces me that Ovid has touched those tender 
strokes more delicately than Virgil could. But when action or persons 
are to be described, when any such image is to be set before us, how 
bold, how masterly are the strokes of Virgil ! We see the objects he 
represents ns within their native figures, in their proper motions ; but 
we so see them as our own eyes could never have beheld them, so 
beautiful in themselves. We see the soul of the poet, like that 
universal one of which he speaks, informing and moving through all 
his pictures : I 

" Totamque infusa per artus 
Mens agitat molem et magno se corpore miscet." 

We behold him embellishing his images, as he makes Venus breathing 

beauty upon her son ^neas. 

" Lumenque juventse 
Purpureum et Isetos oculis afflarat honores : 
Quale manus addnnt ebori decus, aut ubi flavo 
Argentum Pariusve lapis circumdatur auro." 

See his "Tempest," his "Funeral Sports," his " Combat of Turnus 
and ^neas," and in his " Georgics," which I esteem the divinest part of 
all his writings, the "Plague," the "Country," the "Battle of Bulls," 
the "Labour of the Bees," and those many other excellent images of 
nature, most of which are neither great in themselves, nor have any 
natural ornament to bear them up ; but the words wherewith he de- 
scribes them are so excellent, that it might be well applied to him 
which was said by Ovid, Materiam superabat opus : the very sound of 
his words has often somewhat that is connatural to the subject ; and 
while we read him, we sit, as in a play, beholding the scenes of what 
he represents. To perform this, he made frequent use of tropes, 
which you know change the nature of a known word by appljing it to 
some other signification ; and this is it which Horace means in his 
Epistle to the Pisos : 

" Dixeris egregie, notum si callida verbura 
Reddiderit juiictura novum." 

But I am sensible I have presumed too far to entertain you with a 

' rude discourse of that art which you both know so well, and put into 
practice with so much happiness. Yet before I leave Vir®'!, I must 



ANNUS MIRABILIS. 23 1 

own the vanity to tell you, and by you the world, that he has been my ; 
master In this poem : I have followed him everywhere, I know not ^i 
with what success, but I am sure with diligence enough ; my images | 
are many o'f them copied from him, and the rest are imitations of him. j 
My expressions also are as near as the idioms of the two languages l 
would admit of in translation. And this, sir, I have done with that i^ 
boldness for which I will stand accountable to any of our little ■< 
critics, who, perhaps, are not better acquainted with him than I am. l 
Upon your first perusal of this poem, you have taken notice of some j 
words which I have innovated (if it be too bold for me to say refined) ' 
upon his Latin ; which, as I ofl'er not to introduce into English prose, '; 
so I hope they are neither improper nor altogether unelegant in verse ; J 
and in this Horace will again defend me. \ 

* " Et nova fictaque nuper habebunt verba fidem si ^ 

Grseco fonte cadent parce detorta." ' 

The inference is exceeding plain : for if a Roman poet might have :j 
liberty to coin a word, supposing only that it was derived from the :1 
Greek, was put into a Latin termination, and that he used this liberty i 
but seldom and with modesty, how much more justly may I challenge ; 
that privilege to do it with the same pre-requisites, from the best and c 
mosb judicious of Latin writers? In some places, where either the ,;; 
fancy or the words were his or any other's, I have noted it in the ^ 
margin, that I might not seem a plagiary ; in others I have neglected <j 
it, to avoid as well tediousness as the affectation of doing it too often. * 
Such descriptions or images well wrought, which I promise not for 'n 
mine, are, as I have said, the adequate delight of heroic poesy ; for they - 
beget admiration, which is its proper object ; as the images of the 1 
burlesque, which is contrary to this, l:>y the same reason beget laughter : ' 
for the one shows nature beautified, as in the picture of a fair woman, ;\ 
which we all admire ; the other shows her deformed, as in that of a 5 
lazar, or of a fool with distorted face and antic gestures, at which we i 
cannot forbear to laugh, because it is a deviation from nature. But 1 
though the same images serve equally for the epic poesy, and for the '; 
historic and panegyric, which are branches of it, yet a several sort of i 
sculpture is to be used in them. If some of them are to be like those r, 
of Juvenal, Stantes in ciirribus ^'Ennliani, heroes drawia in their trium- ■ 
phal chariots, and in their full proportion ; others are to be like that f 
of Virgil, Spirantia mollius cera, : there is somewhat more of softness \ 
and tenderness to be shown in them. You will soon find I write riot ', 
this without concern. Some, who have seen a paper of verses which I J 
wrote last year to her Highness the Duchess, have accused them of ".^ 
that only thing \ could defend in them. They have said, I did humi % 
serpere, that I wanted not only height of fancy, but dignity of words ^ 
to set it off. I might well answer with that of Horace, Nunc uon erat i 



24 dryden's poems. 

Ms locus; I knew T addressed them to a lady, and accordingly 1 
affected the softness of expression and the smoothness pf measure, 
lather than the height of thought ; and in what I did endeavour, it is 
no vanity to say I have succeeded. I detest arrogance ; but there is 
some difference betwixt that and a just defence. But I will not 
farther bribe your candour, or the reader's. I leave them to speak for 
me ; and, if they can, to make out that character, not pretending to a 
greater, which I have given them. 

And now, sir, 'tis time I should relieve you from the tedious length 
of this account. You have better and more profitable employment for 
your hours, and I wrong the public to detain you longer. In conclu- 
sion, I must leave my poem to you with all its faults, which I hope to 
find fewer in the printing by your emendations. I know you are not 
of the number of those of whom the younger Pliny speaks : Nee sunt 
parum multi, qui carpere amicos suos judicium vacant : I am rather 
too secure of you on that side. Your candour in pardoning my errors 
may malce you more remiss in correcting them ; if you will iiot withal 
consider that they come into tlie world with your approbation, and 
through your hands. I beg from you the greatest favour you can 
confer upon an absent person, since I repose upon your management 
what is dearest to me, my fame and reputation ; and, therefore, I 
hope it will stir you up to make my poem fairer by many of your 
blots. If not, you know the story of the gamester who married the 
rich man's daughter, and when her father denied the portion, christ- 
ened all the children by liis surname, that, if in conclusion they must 
beg, they should do so by one name as well as by the other. But since 
the reproach of my faults will light on you, 'tis but reason I should do 
you that justice to the readers to let them know that, if there be any- 
thing tolerable in this poem, they owe the argument to your choice, 
the writing to your encouragement, the correction to your judgment,, 
and the care of it to your friendship, to which he mi\st ever acknow- 
ledge himself to owe all things, who is, 
Sir, 
The most obedient and most faithful of yoiu- servants, 

John Dryden.. 

From Charlton, in Wiltshire, 
Nov. 10, 1666. 



ANNUS MIRABILIS: 

THE YEAR OF WONDERS, 1666. 



1. 

In thriving arts long time had Holland grown, 
Crouching at home and cruel when abroad ; 

Scarce leaving us the means to claim our own. 
Our King they courted and our merchants awed. 

2. 

Trade, which like blood should circularly flow, 
Stopped in their channels, found its freedom lost : 

"Thither the wealth of all the world did go. 

And seemed but shipwracked on so base a coast. 

3. 
Tor them alone the heavens had kindly heat, 

In Eastern quarries ripening precious dew ; 
'Fov them the Idumasan balm did sweat, 

And in hot Ceylon spicy forests grew. 

4. 
The sun but seemed the labourer of their year ; 

Each wexing moon supplied her watery store 
To swell those tides which from the Line did bear 

Their brim-full vessels to the Belgian shore. 

5. 
Thus mighty in her ships stood Carthage long, 

And swept the riches of the world from far, 
Tet stooped to Eome, less wealthy but more strong ; 

And this may prove our second Punic war. 

6. 
What peace can be,, where both to one pretend, 
But they more diligent, and we more strong ? 



26 . dryden's poems. 

Or if a peace, it soon must have an end, 

For they would grow too powerful, were it long. 

7. 
Behold two nations then engaged so far 

That each seven years the fit must shake each land j- 
Where France will side to weaken us by war 

Who only can his vast designs withstand. 



See how he feeds the Iberian with delays 
To render us his timely friendship vain ; 

And while his secret soul on Flanders preys, 
He rocks the cradle of the babe of Spain. 

9. 
Such deep designs of empire does he lay 

O'er them whose cause he seems to take in hand, 
And prudently would make them lords at sea, 

To whom with ease he can give laws by land. 

10. 
This saw our King, and long within his breast 

His pensive counsels balanced to and fro ; 
H'^ grieved the land he freed should be opprest, 

And he less for it than usurpers do. 

11. 

His generous mind the fair ideas drew 

Of fame and honour, which in dangers lay ; 

Where wealth, like fruit on precipices, grew, 
Not to be gathered but by birds of prey. 

12. 
The loss and gain each fatally were great, 

And still his subjects called aloud for war : 
But peaceful kings, o'er martial people set, 

Each other's poise and counterbalance are» 



ANNUS MIKABILIS. 27 

13. 

He first surveyed the charge with careful eyes, 

Which none but mighty monarchs could maintain : 

Yet judged, like vapours that from limbecs rise, 
It would in richer showers descend again. 

14. 
At length resolved to assert the watery ball, 

He in himself did whole armadas bring ; 
Him aged seamen m.ight their master call, 

And choose for Greneral, were he not their King. 

15. 
It seems as every ship their Sovereign knows, 

His awful summons they so soon obey ; 
So hear the scaly herd when Proteus blows, 

And so to pasture follow through the sea. 

16. 
To see this fleet upon the ocean move 

Angels drew wide the curtains of the skies ; 
And Heaven, as if there wanted lights above, 

For tapers made two glaring comets rise ; 

17. 
Whether they unctuous exhalations are 

Fired by the sun, or seeming so alone, 
Or each some more remote and slippery star 

Which loses footing when to mortals shown ; 

18. 
Or one that bright companion of the sun, 

Whose glorious aspect sealed our new-born King, 
And now, a round of greater years begun. 

New influence from his walks of light did bring. 

19. 
Victorious York did first with famed success 

To his known valour make the Dutch give place ; 



28 dhyden's poems. 

Thus Heaven our Monarcli's fortune did confess, 
Beginning conquest from his royal race, 

20. 
But since it was decreed, auspicious King, 

In Britain's right that thou shouldst wed the main, 
Heaven as a gage would cast some precious thing, 

And therefore doomed that Lawson should be slain. 

21. 

Lawson amongst the foremost met his fate. 

Whom sea-green Sirens from the rocks lament ; 

Thus, as an offering for the G-recian state. 
He first was killed who first to battle went. 

22. 

Their chief blown up, in air, not waves, expired 
To which his pride presumed to give the law ; 

The Dutch confessed Heaven present and retired, 
And all was Britain the wide ocean saw. 

23- 
To nearest ports their shattered ships repair, 

Where by our dreadful cannon they lay awed ; 
So reverently men quit the open air 

Where thunder speaks the angry gods abroad. 

2i. 
And now approached their fieet from India, fraught 

With all the riches of the rising sun, 
And precious sand from Southern climates brought, 

The fatal regions where the war begun. 

25. 
Like hunted castors conscious of their store. 

Their way-laid wealth to Norway's coasts they bring ; 
There first the North's cold bosom spices bore, 

And winter brooded on the eastern spring. 



ANNUS MIRABILIS. 29 

' 26. 
By the rich scent we found our perfumed prey, 

Which, flanked with rocks, did close in covert lie ; 
.And round about their murdering cannon lay 

At once to threaten and invite the eye. 

27. 
Fiercer than cannon and than rocks more hard. 

The English undertake the unequal war : 
S^en ships alone, by which the port is barred, 

Besiege the Indies and all Denmark dare. 

28. 
These fight like husbands, but like lovers those ; 

These fain would keep, and those more fain enjoy ; 
And to such height their frantic passion grows 

That what both love both hazard to destroy. 

29. 

Amidst whole heaps of spices lights a ball, 
And now their odours armed against them fly : 

Some preciously by shattered porcelain fall. 
And some by aromatic splinters die. 

30. 
And though by tempests of the prize bereft. 

In Heaven's inclemency some ease Ave find ; 
Our foes we vanquished by our valour left. 

And only yielded to the seas and wind. 

31. 
Nor wholly lost we so deserved a prey, 

For storms repenting part of it restored, 
Which as a tribute from the Baltic sea 

The British ocean sent her mighty lord. 

32. 

€r0, mortals, now and vex yourselves in vain 
For wealth, which so uncertainly must come ; 



30 DK YD EN'S POEMS. 

When wliat was brought so far and with such pai|i'' 
Was only kept to lose it nearer home. 

33. 
The son who, twice three months on the ocean tost, 

Prepared to tell what he had passed before, 
Now sees in Eng-lish ships the Holland coast, 

And parents' arms in vain stretched from the shore, 

34. 

This careful husband had been long away 

Whom his chaste wife and little children mourn, 

Who on their fingers learned to tell the day 
On which their father promised to return. 

35. 
Such are the proud designs of human kind, 

And so we suffer ship wrack everywhere ! 
Alas, what port can such a pilot find 

Who in the night of Fate must blindly steer 1 

36. 
The undistinguished seeds of good and ill 

Heaven in his bosom from our knowledge hides, 
And draws them in contempt of human skill. 

Which oft for friends mistaken foes provides. 

37. 

Let Munster's prelate ever be accurst. 

In whom we seek the G-erman faith in vain ; 

Alas, that he should teach the English first 

That fraud and avarice in the Church could reign ! 



Happy who never trust a stranger's will 

Whose friendship's in his interest understood ; 

Since money given but tempts him to be ill, 
When power is too remote to make him good. 



ANNUS MIKABILIS. 6 

39. 

Till now, alone the mighty nations strove, 
The rest at gaze without the lists did stand ; 

And threatening France, placed like a painted Jots, 
Kept idle thunder in his lifted hand. 

40. 
That eunuch guardian of rich Holland's trade 

Who envies us what he wants power to enjoy, 
"Whose noisef ul valour does no foe invade, 

And weak assistance will his friends destroy ; 

41. 
Offended that we fought without his leave, 

He takes this time his secret hate to show ; 
Which Charles does with a mind so calm receive 

As one that neither seeks nor shuns his foe. 

42. 

With France to aid the Dutch the Danes unite, 
France as their tyrant, Denmark as their slave ;. 

But when with one three nations join to fight, 
They silently confess that one more brave. 

43. 

Lewis had chased the English from his shore, 
Bu t Charles the French as subjects does invite ; 

Would Heaven for each some Solomon restore. 
Who by their mercy ,may decide their right ! 

44. 
Were subjects so but only by their choice 

And not from birth did forced dominion take. 
Our Prince alone would have the public voice. 

And all his neighbours' realms would deserts make. 

45. 

He without fear a dan9;erous war pursues, 
Which without rashness he began before : 



32 dryden's poems. 

As honour made Mm first the danger choose, 
So still he makes it good on virtue's score. 

46. 
The doubled charge his subjects' love supplies, 

Who in that bounty to themselves are kind : 
So glad Egyptians see their Nilus rise, 

And in his plenty their abundance find. 

47. 
With equal power he does two chiefs create. 

Two such as each seemed worthiest when alone ;: 
Each able to sustain a nation's fate. 

Since both had found a greater in their own. 

48. 
Both great in courage, conduct, and in fame, 

Yet neither envious of the other's praise ; 
Their duty, faith, and interest too the same, 

Like mighty partners, equally they raise. 

49. 
The Prince long time had courted Fortune's love, 

But once possessed did absolutely reign : 
Thus with their Amazons the heroes strove, 

And conquered first those beauties they would gain. 

50. 
The Duke beheld, like Scipio, with disdain 

That Carthage which he ruined rise once more, 
And shook aloft the fasces of the main 

To fright those slaves with what they felt before. 

51. 
Together to the watery camp they haste, 

Whom matrons passing to their children show ; 
Infants' first vows for them to Heaven are cast, 

And future people bless them as they go. 



ANNUS MIEABILIS. S3 

52. 
Witli them no riotous pomp nor Asian train 

To infect a navy with their gaudy fears 
To make slo\v fights and victories but vain ; 

But war severely like itself appears. 

53. 
Diffusive of themselves, where'er they pass, 

They make that warmth in others they expect ; 
Their valour works like bodies on a glass 

Anti does its image on their men project. 

54. 
Our fleet divides, and straight the Dutch appear, 

In number and a famed commander bold : 
The narrow seas can scarce their navy bear 

Or crowded vessels can their soldiers hold. 

55. 
The Duke, less numerous, but in courage more, 

On wings of all the winds to combat flies ; 
His murdering guns a loud defiance roar, 

And bloody crosses on his flag-staffs rise. 

56. 
Both furl their sails and strip them for the fight ; 

Their folded sheets dismiss the useless air ; 
The Elean plains could boast no nobler fight, 

When struggling champions did their bodies bare. 

57. 
Borne each by other in a distant line. 

The sea-built forts in dreadful order move ; 
So vast the noise, as if not fleets did join, 

But lands unfixed and floating nations strove. 

58. 
Now passed, on either side they nimbly tack ; 
Both strive to intercept and guide the wind , 



34. deyden's poems. 

And in its eye more closely they come back 
To finish all the deaths they left behind. 

59. 
On high-raised decks the haughty Belgians ride, 

Beneath whose shade our humble frigates go ; 
Such port the elephant bears, and so defied 

By the rhinoceros, her unequal foe. 

60. 
And as the build, so different is the fight ; 

Their mounting shot is on our sails designed : 
Deep in their hulls our deadly bullets light 

And through the yielding planks a passage find. 



61. '{ 
Our dreaded Admiral from far they threat, f- 

Whose battered rigging their whole war receives ; v 
All bare, like, some old oak which tempests beat, -;; 
He stands, and sees below his scattered leaves. 

62. \ 
Heroes of old when wounded shelter sought ; ;; 

But he, who meets all danger with disdain, ■; 

Even in their face his ship to anchor brought ■ 

And steeple -high stood propped upon the main. ; 

63. I 
At this excess of courage all-amazed, ^ 

The foremost of his foes a while withdraw ; • 

With such respect in entered Rome they gazed ^ 

Who on high chairs the god-like fathers saw. j 

64. ,j 
And now as, where Patroclus' body lay, J 

Here Trojan chiefs advanced and there the Greek, ; 

Ours o'er the Duke their pious wings display, ^ 

And theirs the noblest spoils of Britain seek. ■ i 



ANNUS MIRABILIS. 35 

65. 
Meantime his busy ioaariners lie hastes 

His shattered sails with rigging to restore ; 
And willing pines ascend his broken masts, 

Whose lofty heads rise higher than before. 

66. 
Straight to the Dutch he turns his dreadful prow, 

More fierce the important quarrel to decide : 
Like swans in long array his vessels show, 

UThose crests advancing do the waves divide. 

67. 
They charge, recharge, and all along the sea 

They drive and squander the huge Bel^an fleet ; 
Berkeley alone, who nearest danger lay. 

Did a like fate with lost Creusa meet. 

68. 
The night comes on, we eager to pursue 

The combat still and they ashamed to leave : 
Till the last streaks of dying day withdrew, 

And doubtful moonlight did our rage deceive. 

69. 
In the English fleet each ship resounds with joy 

And loud applause of their great leader's fame ; 
In fiery dreams the Dutch they still destroy, 

And slumbering smile at the imagined flume. 

70. 
Not so the Holland fleet, who, tired and done, 

Stretched on their decks like weary oxen lie ; 
Faint sweats all down their mighty members ran. 

Vast bulks, which little souls but ill supply. 

71. 

In dreams they fearful precipices tread, 

Or shipwracked labour to some distant shores 



36 deyden's poems. 

Or in dark chnrclies walk among tlie dead, 
Tliey wake with horror and dare sleep no more. 

72. 
The mom they look on with unwilling eyes, 

Till from their maintop joyful news they hear 
Of ships which by their mould bring new supplies, 

And in their colours Belgian lions bear. 

73. 
Our watchful Greneral had discerned from far 

This mighty succour, which made glad the foe ; 
He sighed, but, like a father of the war. 

His face spake hope, while deep his sorrows flow. 

74. 
His wounded men he first sends off to shore, 

Never till now unwilling to obey : 
They not their wounds but want of strength deplore, 

And think them happy who with him can stay. 

75. 
Then to the rest, " Rejoice," said he, " to-day 1 

In you the fortune of Grreat Britain lies ; 
Among so brave a people you are they 

Whom Heaven has chose to fight for such a prize. 

76. 
" If number English courages could quell. 

We should at first have shunned, not met our foes, 
Whose numerous sails the fearful only tell ; 

Courage from hearts and not from numbers grows." 

77. 
He said, nor needed more to say : with haste 

To their known stations cheerfully they go ; 
And all at once, disdaining to be last. 

Solicit every gale to meet the foe. 



ANNUS MIRABILIS. 37 

78. 
Nor did the encouraged Belgians long delay, 

But bold in others, not themselves, they stood : 
So thick, our navy scarce could sheer their way, 

But seemed to wander in a moving wood. 

79. 
Our little fleet was now engaged so far 

That like the sword-fish in the whale they fought ; 
The combat only seemed a ciVil war, 

1^11 through their bowels we our passage wrought. 

80. 
Never had valour, no, not ours before 

Done aught like this upon the land or main ; 
Where not to be o'ercome was to do more 

Than all the conquests former kings did gain. 

81. 
The mighty ghosts of our great Harrys rose, 

And armed Edwards looked with anxious eyes. 
To see this fleet among unequal foes. 
By which Fate promised them their Charles should 
rise. 

82. 

Meantime the Belgians tack upon our rear. 

And raking chase-guns through our stems they send ; 

Close by, their fire-ships like jackals appear 
Who on their lions for the prey attend. 

'83. 
Silent in smoke of cannon they come on : 

Such vapours once did fiery Cacus hide : 
In these the height of pleased revenge is shown 

Who burn contented by another's side. 

84. 
Sometimes from fighting squadrons of each fleet, 
Deceived themselves or to preserve some friend, 



88 bryden's poems. 

Two grappling Etna's on the ocean meet 

And English fires with Belgian flames contend. 

85. 
Now at each tack our little fleet grows less ; 

And, like maimed fowl, swim lagging on the main ; 
Their greater loss their numbers scarce confess, 

While they lose cheaper than the English gain. 

86. 
Have you not seen when, whistled from the fisfc. 

Some falcon stoops at what her eye designed, 
And, with her eagerness the quarry missed. 

Straight flies at check and clips it down the wind ;. 

87. 
The dastard crow, that'to the wood made wing 

And sees the groves no shelter can afford. 
With her loud caws her craven kind does bring, 

Who, safe in numbers, cuff the noble bird. 

88. 
Among the Dutch thus Albemarle did fare : 

He could not conquer, and disdained to fly r 
Past hope of safety, 'twas his latest care, 

Like falling Csesar, decently to die. 



Yet pity did his manly spirit move, 

To see those perish who so well had fought ; 

And generously with his despair he strove, 
Resolved to live till he their safety wrought.. 

90. 
Let other Muses write his prosp'rous fate, 

Of conquered nations tell and kings restored : 
But mine shall sing of his eclipsed estate, 

Which, like 'the sun"s, more wonders does afford. 



ANNUS MIRABILIS. 39 

. 91. 
He drew Ms mighty frigates all before, 

On which the foe his fruitless force employs ; 
His weak ones deep into his rear he bore 

Remote from guns, as sick men from the noise. 

92. 
His fiery cannon did their passage guide. 

And following smoke obscured them from the foe ; 
Thus Israel, safe from the Egyptian's pride, 

Bj flaming pillars and by clouds did go. 

93. 
Elsewhere the Belgian force we did defeat, 

But here our courages did theirs subdue ; 
So Xenophon once led that famed retreat 

Which first the Asian empire overthrew. 

94. 
The foe approached ; and one for his bold sin 

Was sunk, as he that touched the Ark was slain : 
The wild waves mastered him and sucked him in, 

And smiling eddies dimpled on the main. 

95. 
This seen, the rest at awful distance stood : 

As if they had been there as servants set 
To stay or to go^on, as he thought good. 

And not pursue, but wait on his retreat. 

• 96. 
So Libyan huntsmen on some sandy plain, 

From shady coverts roused, the lion chase • 
The kingly beast roars out with loud disdain, 

And slowly moves, unknowing to give place. 

97. 
But if some one approach to dare his force. 

He swings his tail and swiftly turns him round, 



40 dkyden's poems. 

With, one paw seizes on Ms trembling horse, 
And with the other tears him to the ground. 

98. 
Amidst these toils succeeds the balmy night ; 

Now hissing waters the quenched guns restore : 
And weary waves, withdrawing from the fight, 

Lie lulled and panting on the silent shore, 

99. ' 

The moon shone clear on the becalmed flood, 

Where, while her beams like glittering silver play, 
Upon the deck our careful General stood. 

And deeply mused on the succeeding day. 

100. 
" That happy sun," said he, " will rise again 
Who twice victorious did our navy see. 
And I alone must view him rise in vain, 
Without one ray of all his star for me. 

101. 
*' Yet like an English general will I die, 

And all the ocean make my spacious grave : 
Women and cowards on the land may lie ; 
The sea's a tomb that's proper for the brave." 

102. 
Restless he passed the remnants of the night, 

Till the fresh air proclaimed the morning nigh ; 
And burning ships, the martyrs of the fight. 

With paler fires beheld the eastern sky. 

103. 
But now, his stores of ammunition spent. 

His naked valour is his only guard ; 
Rare thunders are from his dumb cannon sent, 

And solitary guns are scarcely heard. 



ANNUS MIRABILIS. 41 

104. 
Thus far had Fortune power, here forced to stay ; 

Nor longer durst with virtue be at strife ; 
This as a ransom Albemarle did pay 

For all the glories of so great a life. 

105. 
For now brave Rupert from afar appears, 

Whose waving streamers the glad General knows ; 
With full-spread sails his eager navy steers, 
- And every ship in swift proportion grows. 

106. 
The anxious Prince had heard the cannon long 

And from jshat length of time dire omens drew 
Of English overmatched, and Dutch too strong 

Who never fought three days but to pursue. 

107. 
Then, a's an eagle, who with pious care 

Was beating widely on the wing for prey, 
To her now silent eiry does repair. 

And finds her callow infants forced away ; 

108. 
Stung with her love she stoops upon the plain, 

The broken air loud whistling as she flies ; 
She stops and listens and shoots forth again, 

And guides her pinions by her young ones' cries. 

109. 
With such kind passion hastes the Prince to fight 

And spreads his flying canvas to the sound ; 
Him whom no danger, were he there, could fright, 

Now absent, every little noise can wound. 

110. 

As in a drought the thirsty creatures cry 
And gape upon the gathered clouds for rain, 



42 DE,YDEN*S POEMS. 

And first tlie martlet meets it in the sky, 

And with wet wings joys all the feathered train ; 

111. 
With such giad hearts did our despairing men 

Salute the appearance of the Prince's fleet, 
And each ambitiously would claim the ken 

That with first eyes did distant safety meet. 

112. 
The Dutch, who came like greedy hinds before 

To reap the harvest their ripe ears did yield, 
Now look like those, when rolling thunders roar 

And sheets of lightning blast the standing field. 

113. 
Full in the Prince's passage, hills of sand 

And dangerous flats in secret ambush lay. 
Where the false tides skim o'er the covered land, 

And seamen with dissembled depths betray. 

lU. 

The wily Dutch, who, like fallen angels, feared 
This new Messiah's coming, there did wait, 

And round the verge their braving vessels steered 
To tempt his courage with so fair a bait. 

115. 
But he unmoved contemns their idle threat, 

Secure of fame whene'er he please to fight ; 
His cold experience tempers all his heat. 

And inbred worth does boasting valour slight. 

116. 
Heroic virtue did his actions guide, 

And he the substance, not the appearance, chose ; 
To rescue one such friend he took more pride 

Than to destroy whole thousands of such foes. 



ANNUS MIEABILIS. 43 

117. 
But when approached, in strict embraces bound 

Eupert and Albemarle together grow ; 
He joys to have his friend in safety found, 

Which he to none but to that friend would owe. 

118. 
The cheerful soldiers, with new stores supplied, 

Now long to execute their spleenful will ; 
And in revenge for those three days they tried 
^Wish one like Joshua's, when the sun stood still. 

119. 
Thus reinforced, against the adverse fleet, 

Still doubling ours, brave Rupert leads the way ; 
"With the first blushes of the morn they meet, 
. And bring night back upon the new-born day. 

120. 
His presence soon blows up the kindling fight, 

And his loud guns speak thick like angry men ; 
It seemed as slaughter had been breathed all night, 

And Death new pointed his dull dart again. 

121. 
The Dutch too well his mighty conduct know 

And matchless courage, since the former fight ; 
Whose navy like a stiff stretched cord did show, 

Till he bore in and bent them into flight. 

122. 
The wind he shares, while half their fleet gffends 

His open side and high above him shows ; 
Upon the rest at pleasure he descends, 

And doubly harmed, he double harms bestows. 

123. 
Behind, the General mends his weary pace, 
And sullenly to his revenge he sails ; 



44 deyden's poems. 

So g-lides some trodden serpent on the grass, 
And long behind his wounded volume trails. 

124. 
The increasing sound is borne to either shore, 

And for their stakes the throwing nations fear ; 
Their passion double with the cannons' roar, 

And with warm wishes each man combats there. 

125. 

Plied thick and close as when the fight begun, 
Their huge unwieldy navy wastes away : 

So sicken waning moons too near the sun 

And blunt their crescents on the edge of day. 

126. 
And now, reduced on equal terms to fight, 

Their ships like wasted patrimonies show, 
Where the thin scattering trees admit the light 

And shun each other's shadows as they grow. 

127. 
The warlike Prince had severed from the rest 

Two giant ships, the pride of all the main : 
Which with his one so vigorously he pressed, 

And flew so home they could not rise again. 

128. 
Already battered by his lee they lay ; 

In vain upon the passing winds they call j 
The passing winds through their torn canvas play, 

And flagging sails on heartless sailors fall. 

129. 
Their opened sides receive a gloomy light, 

Dreadful as day let in to shades below ; 
Without, grim Death rides barefaced in their sight 

And urges entering billows as they flow. 



ANNUS MIEABILIS. 45 

130. 
When one dire shot, the last they could supply, 

Close by the board the Prince's mainmast bore : 
All three now helpless by each other lie, 

And this offends not and those fear no more. 

131. 
So have I seen some fearful hare maintain 

A course, till tired before the dog" she lay, 
Who, stretched behind her, pants upon the plain, 

i?ast power to kill as she to get away : 

132. 
With his lolled tongue he faintly licks his prey ; 

His warm breath blows her flix up as she lies ; 
She, trembling, creeps upon the ground away 

And looks back to him with beseeching eyes. 

133. 
The Prince unjustly does his stars accuse, 

Which hindered him to push his fortune on ; 
For what they to his courage did refuse 

By mortal valour never must be done, 

134. 
This lucky hour the wise Batavian takes, 

And warns his tattered fleet to follow home i 
Proud to have so got off with equal stakes, 

Where 'twas a triumph not to be o'er come. 

135. 
The General's force, as kept alive by fight, 

Now not opposed, no longer can pursue ; 
Lasting till Heaven had done his courage right. 

When he had conquered, he his weakness knew. 

136. 
He casts a frown on the departing foe 

And sighs to see him quit the watery field ; 



46 dryden's poems. 

His stern fixed eyes no satisfaction show 
For all tlie glories which the fight did yield. 

137. 
Though, as when fiends did miracles avow, 

He stands confessed even by the boastful Dutch ; 
He only does his conquest disavow 

And thinks too little what they found too much, 

138. 
Returned, he with the fleet resolved to stay ; 

No tender thoughts of home his heart divide ; 
Domestic joys and cares he puts away, 

For realms are households which the great must guide. 

139. 
As those who unripe veins in mines explore 

On the rich bed again the warm turf lay 
Till time digests the yet imperfect ore, 

And know it will be gold another day ; 

140. 
So looks our Monarch on this early fight, 

The essay and rudiments of great success, 
Which all-maturing time must bring to light 

While he, like Heaven, does each day's labour bless. 

141. 
Heaven ended not the first or second day, 

Yet each was perfect to the work designed : 
€rod and kings' work, when they their work survey, 

And passive aptness in all subjects find. 

142. 
In burdened vessels first with speedy care 

His plenteous stores do seasoned timber send ; 
Thither the brawny carpenters repair 

And as the surgeons of maimed ships attend. 



ANNUS MIRABILIS. 47 

143. 

Witli cord and canvas from rich. Hamburg sent 
His navy's moulted winqs lie imps once more ; 

Tall Norway fir their masts in battle spent, 
And English oak sprung leaks and planks restore. 

UL 
All hands employed, the royal work grows warm^ 

Like labouring bees on a long summer's day ; 
Some sound the trumpet for the rest to swarm, 
^ And some on bells of tasted lilies play ; 

145. 
With gluey wax some new foundation lay 

Of virgin-combs, which from the roof are hung ; 
Some armed within doors upon duty stay 

Or tend the sick or educate the young. 

146. 
So here some pick out bullets from the side. 

Some drive old oakum through each seam and rift : 
Their left-hand does the caulking-iron guide, 

The rattling mallet with the right they lift. 

147. 
With boiling pitch, another near at hand, 

From friendly Sweden brought, the seams instops, 
Which well paid o'er the salt sea waves withstand, 

And shake them from the rising beak in dro^s. 

148. 
Some the galled ropes with dauby marling bind. 

Or sear-cloth masts with strong tarpauling coats J 
To try new shrouds one mounts into the wind. 

And one below their ease or stiffness notes. 

149. 
Our careful Monarch stands in person by, 
His new cast cannons' firmness to explore ; 



48 DKYDEN'S POEMS. 

The strength of big-corned powder loves to try, 
And ball and cartridge sorts for every bore. 

150. 
Each day brings fresh supplies of arms and men, 

And ships which all last winter were abroad. 
And such as fitted since the fight had been. 

Or new from stocks were fallen into road. 

151. 
The goodly London, in her gallant trim. 

The phoenix-daughter of the vanished old, 
Like a rich bride does to the ocean swim, 

And on her shadow rides in floating gold, 

152. 
Her fla^ aloft, spread ruffling to the wind, 

And sanguine streamers seem the flood to fire ; 
The weaver, charmed with what his loom designed, 

Goes on to sea and knows not to retire. 

153. 

With roomy decks, her guns of mighty strength, 
Whose low-laid mouths each mounting billow laves, 

Deep in her draught and warlike in her length, 
She seems a sea-wasp flying on the waves. 

154. 
This martial present, piously designed. 

The loyal City give their best-loved King, 
And, with a bounty ample as the wind, 

Built, fitted, and maintained, to aid him bring, 

155. 
By viewing nature Nature's handmaid, Art, 

Makes mighty things from small beginnings grow : 
Thus fishes first to shipping did impart, 

Their tail the rudder and their head the prow. 



ANNUS MIRABILIS. 49 

156. 

Some log perhaps, upon the waters swam, 
An useless drift, which, rudely cut within 

And hollowed, first a floating trough became, 
And cross some rivulet passage did begin. 

157. 
In shipping such as this the Irish kern 

And untaught Indian on the stream did glide, 
Ere sharp-keeled boats to stem the flood did learn, 

Or fin-like oars did spread from either side. 

158. 
Add but a sail, and Saturn so appeared, 

When from lost empire he to, exile went, 
And with the golden age to Tiber steered, 

Where coin and first commerce he did invent. 

159. 

Rude as their ships was navigation then, 
No useful compass or meridian known ; 

Coasting, they kept the land within their ken. 
And knew no north but when the pole-star shone. 

160. 
Of all who since have used the open sea 

Than the bold English none more fame have won ; 
Beyond the year, and out of Heaven's high way, 

Thev make discoveries where they see no sun. 

161. 
But what so long in vain, and yet unknown, 

By poor mankind's benighted wit is sought, 
Shall in this age to Britain first be shown. 

And hence be to admiring nations taught. 

162. 
The ebbs of tides and their mysterious flow 
We, as arts' elements, shall understand. 



50 deyden's poems. 

And as by line upon the ocean g-o 

Whose paths shall be familiar as the land. 

163. 
Instructed ships shall sail to quick commerce, 

By which remotest regions are allied ; 
Which makes one city of the universe, 

Where some may gain and all may be supplied, 

164. 
Then we upon our globe's last verge shall go 

And view the ocean leaning on the sky : 
From thence our rolling neighbours we shall know 

And on the lunar world securely pry. 

165. 
This I foretell, from your auspicious care 

Who great in search of God and N'ature grow j 
Who best your wise Creator's praise declare, 

Since best to praise His works is best to know. 

166. 
0, truly Eoyal ! who behold the law 

And rule of beings in your Maker's mind. 
And thence, like limbecs, rich ideas draw 

To fit the levelled use of human kind. 

167. 
But first the toils of war we must endure 

And from the injurious Dutch redeem the seas ; 
War makes the valiant of his right sec are 

And gives up fraud to be chastised with ease. 

168. 
Already were the Belgians on our coast, 

Whose fleet more mighty every day became 
By late success, which they did falsely boast. 

And now by first appearing seemed to claim» 



ANNUS IvlIEABILIS. 51 

169. 
Designing, subtle, diligent, and close, 

They knew to manage war with, wise delay : 
Yet all those arts their vanity did cross 

And by their pride their prudence did betray. 

170. 
Nor stayed the English long ; but, well supplied, 

Appear as numerous as the insulting foe ; 
The combat now by courage must be tried, 
"And the success the braver nation show. 

171. 
There was the Plymouth squadron new come in. 

Which in the Straits last winter was abroad ; 
Which twice on Biscay's working bay had been, 

And on the midland sea the French had awed. 

172. 
Old expert Allen, loyal all along, 

Famed for his action on the Smyrna fleet ; 
And Holmes, whose name shall live in epic song. 

While music numbers, or while verse has feet ; 

173. 

Holmes, the Achates of the G-eneral's fight. 

Who first bewitched our eyes with G-uinea gold. 

As once old Gato in the Roman's sight, 
The tempting fruits of Af ric did unfold. 

174. 
With him went Spragge, as bountiful as brave, 

Whom, his high courage to command had brought ; 
Harman, who did the twice-fired Harry save. 

And in his burning ship undaunted fought. 

175. 
Young Hollis, on a Muse by Mars begot. 

Born, C^sar-like, to write and act great deeds. 



52 DEYDEN'S POEMS. 

Impatient to revenge Ms fatal shot, 
His right hand doubly to Ms left succeeds. 

176. 
TiLOUsands were there in darker fame that dwell, 

Whose deeds some nobler poem shall adorn ; 
And though to me unknown, they sure fought well 

Whom Eupert led and who were British born, 

177. 

Of every size an hundred fighting sail ; 

So vast the navy now at anchor rides, 
That underneath it the pressed waters fail 

And with its weight it shoulders off the tides. 

178. 
Now, anchors weighed, the seamen shout so shrill 

That heaven and earth and the wide ocean rings : 
A breeze from westward waits their sails to fill 

And rests in those high beds his downy wings. 

179. 
The wary Dutch this gathering storm foresaw 

And durst not bide it on the English coast ; 
Behind their treacherous shallows they withdraw, 

And there lay snares to catch the British host. 

180. 
So the false spider, when her nets are spread, 

Deep ambushed in her silent den does lie, 
And feels far off the trembling of her thread, 
' Whose filmy cord should bind the struggling fly ; 

181. 
Then, if at last she find him fast beset. 

She issues forth and runs along her loom : 
She joys to touch the captive in her net, 

And drags the little wretch in triumph home. 



ANNUS MIRABILIS. 53 

182. 
The Belgians hoped that with disordered haste 

Our deep-cut keels upon the sands might run ; 
Or, if with caution leisurely were past, 

Their numerous gross might charge us one by one. 

183. 
But, with a fore-wind pushing them above 

And swelling tide that heaved them from below, 
O'er the blind flats our warlike squadrons move, 

«And with spread sails to welcome battle go. 

184. 
It seemed as there the British Neptune stood, 

With all his host of waters at command ; 
Beneath them to submit the ofl&cious flood. 

And with his trident shoved them off the sand. 

185. 
To the pale foes they suddenly draw near 

And summon them to unexpected fight : 
They start, like murderers when ghosts appear, 

And draw their curtains in the dead of night. 

186. 
Now van to van the foremost squadrons meet, 

The midmost battles hasting up behind, 
Who view far off the storm of falling sleet 

And hear their thunder rattling in the wind. 

187. 
At length the adverse Admirals appear, 

The two bold champions of each country's right ; 
Their eyes describe the lists as they come near, 

And draw the lines of death before they fight. 

188. 
The distance judged for shot of every size, 

The linstocks touch, the ponderous ball expires ; 



54 dkyden's poems. 

The vigorous seaman every porthole plies 
And adds his heart to every gun he fires. 

189. 
Fierce was the fight on the proud Belgians' side 

For honour, which they seldom sought before ; 
But now they by their own vain boasts were tied, 

And forced at least in show to prize it more. 

190. 
But sharp remembrance on the English part 

And shame of being matched by such a foe, 
Eouse conscious virtue up in every heart, 

And seeming to be stronger makes them so. 

191. 
Nor long the Belgians could that fleet sustain, 

Which did two G-enerals' fates and Caesar's bear ; 
Each several ship a victory did gain. 

As Rupert or as Albemarle were there. 

192. 
Their battered Admiral too soon withdrew, 

Un thanked by ours for his unfinished fight ; 
But he the minds of his Dutch masters knew 

Who called that providence which we called flight. 

193. 

Never did men more joyfully obey 

Or sooner understood the sign to fly ; 
With such alacrity they bore «,way, 

As if to praise them all the States stood by. 

194. 
O famous leader of the Belgian fleet ! 

Thy monument inscribed such praise shall wear 
As Varro, timely flying, once did meet, 

Because he did. not of his Rome despair. 



ANNUS MIKABILIS. 55 

195. 
Behold that navy, wliicli a while before 

Provoked the tardy English close to fight, 
Now draw their beaten vessels close to shore, 

As larks lie dared to shun the hobby's flight. 

196. 
Whoe'er would English monuments survey 

In other records may our courage know ; 
But let them hide the story of this day, 

"jyhose fame was blemished by too base a foe. 

197. 
Or if too busily they will inquire 

Into a victory which we disdain. 
Then let them know the Belgians did retire 

Before the patron saint of injured Spain 

198. 
Bepenting England, this revengeful day, 

To Philip's manes did an offering bring ; 
England, which first by leading them astray 

Hatched up rebellion to destroy her King. 

199. 
Our fathers bent their baneful industry 

To che--.k a monarchy that slowly grew ; 
But did not France or Holland's fate foresee, 

Whose rising power to swift dominion flew. 

200. 
In Fortune's empire blindly thus we go 

And wander after pathless destiny ; 
Whose dark resorts since prudence cannot know, 

In vain it would provide for what shall be. 

201. 
But whate'er English to the blessed shall go. 
And the fourth Harry or first Orange meet. 



66 dkyden's poems. 

Find him disowning of a Bourbon foe, 
And him detesting a Batavian fleet. 

202. 
Now on their coasts our conquering navy rides, 

Waylays their merchants and their land besets ; 
Each day new wealth without their care provides, 

They lie asleep with prizes in their nets. 

203. 
So close behind some promontory lie 

The huge leviathans to attend their prey. 
And give no chase, but swallow in the fry, 

Which through their gaping jaws mistake the way. 

204. 
Nor was this all ; in ports and roads remote 

Destructive fires among whole fleets we send ; 
Triumphant flames upon the water float 

And out-bound ships at home their voyage end. 

205. 
Those various squadrons, variously designed, 

Each vessel freighted with a several load. 
Each squadron waiting for a several wind, 

All find but one, to burn them in the road. 

206. 
Some bound for Gruinea golden sand to find, 

Bore all the gauds the simple natives wear ; 
Some for the pride of Turkish courts designed 

For folded turbans finest holland bear ; 

207. 
Some English wool, vexed in a Belgian loom 

And into cloth of spongy softness made, 
Did into France or colder Denmark doom, 

To ruin with worse ware our staple trade. 



1 
ANNU8 MIEABILIS. 57 j 

' 208. .. \ 

Our greedy seamen rummag-e every hold, \ 

Smile on the booty of each, wealthier chest ; "I 
And, as the priests who with their gods make bold, 

Take what they like and sacrifice the rest. , 

209. \ 
But. ah ! how unsincere are all our joys, ^ 

Which sent from Heaven, like lightning, make no stay ! 1 
Their palling taste the journey's length destroys, ^ 

^ Or grief sent post o'ertakes them on the way. '\ 

210. .^ 
Swelled with our late successes on the foe, * \j 

Which France and Holland wanted power to cross ; \ 

We urge an unseen fate to lay us low, \ 

And feed their envious eyes with English loss. i 

211. I 
Each element His dread command obeys \ 

Who makes or ruins with a smile or frown ; 
Who as by one He did our nation raise. 
So now He with another pulls us down. 

212. 
Yet, London, emprese of the northern clime, 

By an high fate thou greatly didst expire ; 
Cl-reat as the v/orld's, which at the death of time 

Must fall and rise a nobler frame by fire. 

213. 
As when some dire usurper Heaven provides 

To scourge his country with a lawless sway ; 
His birth perhaps some petty village hides 

And sets his cradle out of Fortune's way ; 

214. 
Till, fully ripe, his swelling fate breaks out 
And hurries him to mighty mischiefs on ; 



58 dryden's poems. i 

His Prince, surprised at first no ill could doubt, .^ 

And wants the power to meet it wken 'tis known. '\ 

"i 

215. .] 

Such was the rise of this prodigious fire, i 

Which in mean buildings first obscurely bred, j; 

From thence did soon to open streets aspire, ;| 

And straight to palaces and temples spread. } 

i 

216. ';i 

The diligence of trades, and noiseful gain, '"^ 

And luxury, more late, asleep were laid ; 'i 

All was the Night's, and in her silent reign .■ 

No sound the rest of Nature did invade. i 

217. j 
In this deep quiet, from what source unknown, .; 

Those seeds of fire their fatal birth disclose ; -; 

And first few scattering sparks about were blown, ^ 

Big with the flames that to our ruin rose. i 

218. "j 
Then in some close-pent room it crept along '■ 

And, smouldering as it went, in silence fed ; i 

Till the infant monster, with devouring strong, . : 

Walked boldly upright with exalted head. ■] 

219. ■ 
Now, like some rich or mighty murderer, i 

Too great for prison which he breaks with gold, < 

Who fresher for new mischiefs does appear ' 

And dares the world to tax him with the old : : 

220. i 
So 'scapes the insulting fire his narrow jail ^ 

And makes small outlets into open air ; ■; 

There the fierce winds his tender force assail ; 

And beat him downward to his first repair. i 



ANNUS MIRABILIS. 59 

221. 
The winds, like crafty courtesans, withheld 

His flames from burning but to blow them more : 
And every fresh attempt, he is repelled 

With faint denials, weaker than before. 

222. 
And now, no longer letted of his prey. 

He leaps up at it with enraged desire, 
O'erlooks the neighbours with a wide survey, 
•And nods at every house his threatening fire. 

223. 
The ghosts of traitors from the Bridge descend, 

With bold fanatic spectres to rejoice ; 
About the fire into a dance they bend 

And sing their Sabbath notes with feeble voice. 

224. 
Our guardian angel saw them where they sate, 

Above the palace of our slumbering King ; 
He sighed, abandoning his charge to fate. 

And drooping oft looked back upon the wing. 

225. 

At length the crackling noise and dreadful blaze 
Called up some waking lover to the sight ; 

And long it was ere he the rest could raise, 
Whose heavy eyelids yet were full of night. 

226. 
The next to danger, hot pursued by fate, 

Half -clothed, half -naked, hastily retire ; 
And frighted mothers strike their breasts too late 

For helpless infants left amidst the fire. 

227. 
Their cries soon waken all the dwellers near ; 
Now murmuring noises rise in every street ; 



60 dryden's poems. 

The more remote run stumbling with, their fear. 
And in the dark men justle as they meet. 

228. 
So weary bees in little cells repose ; 

But if night-robbers lift the well-stored hive, 
An humming through their waxen city grows, 

And out upon each other's wings they drive. 

229. 
Now streets grow thronged and busy as by day ; 

Some run for buckets to the hallowed quire ; 
Some cut the pipes, and some the engines play, 

And some more bold mount ladders to the fire. 

230. 
In vain ; for from the east a Belgian wind 

His hostile breath through the dry rafters sent ; 
The flames impelled soon left their foes behind 

And forward with a wanton fury went. 

231. 
A key of fire ran all along the shore 

And lightened all the river with a blaze ; 
The wakened tides began again to roar, 

And wondering fish in shining waters gaze. 

232. 
Old Father Thames raised up his reverend head, 

But feared the fate of Simois would return ; 
Deep in his ooze he sought his sedgy bed 

And shrank his waters back into his urn. 

233. 
,.The fire meantime walks in a broader gross ; 

To either hand his wings he opens wide ; 
He wades the streets, and straight he reaches cross 
And plays his longing flames on the other side. 



ANNUS MIEA.BILIS. 61 ^ 

'i 

234. , 1 
At first tliey warm, then scorch, and then they take, « 

Now with long" necks from side to side they feed ; j 

A.t length, grown strong, their mother-fire forsake, ! 

And a new colony of flames succeed J 

235. 'f 
To every nobler portion of the town ^ 

The curling billows roll their restless tide ; i 

In parties now they straggle up and down, j 

^s armies unopposed for prey divide. * 

236. 1 
One mighty squadron, with a sidewind sped, 1 

Through narrow lanes his cumbered fire does haste, \ 

By powerful charms of gold and silver led ' 
The Lombard bankers and the Change to waste. 

237. I 
Another backward to the Tower would go i 

And slowly eats his way against the wind ; x 

But the main body of the marching foe „| 

Against the imperial palace is designed. -J 

238. ^ 
Now day appears ; and with the day the king. 

Whose early care had robbed him of his rest •! 

Far off the cracks of falling houses ring \ 

And shrieks of subjects pierce his tender breast. ' 

239. - i 
Near as he draws, thick harbingers of smoke 1 

With gloomy pillars cover all the place ; ■' 

Whose little intervals of night are broke 1 

By sparks that drive against his sacred face. ij 

240. j 
More than his guards his sorrows made him known, ■ 

And pious tears which down his cheeks did shower ; ■ 



62 dkyden's poems. 

The wretched in his grief forgot their own ; 
So much the pity of a king has power. 

241. 
He wept the flames of what he loved so well 

And what so well had merited his love ; 
For never prince in grace did more excel 

Or royal city more in duty strove. 

242. 
Nor with an idle care did he behold : 

Subjects may grieve, but monarchs must redress ; 
He cheers the fearful and commends the bold, 

And makes despairers hope for good success. 

243. 
Himself directs what first is to be done. 

And orders all the succours which they bring ; 
The helpful and the good about him run 

And form an army worthy such a king. 

244. 
He sees the dire contagion spread so fast 

That, where it seizes, all relief is vain, 
And therefore must unwillingly lay waste 

That country which would else the foe maintain. 

245. 
The powder blows up all before the fire ; 

The amazed flames stand gathered on a heap, 
And from the precipice's brink retire, 

Afraid to venture on so large a leap. 

246. 
Thus fighting fires a while themselves consume, 

But straight, like Turks forced on to win or die. 
They first lay tender bridges of their fume, 

And o'er the breach in unctuous vapours fly. 



.1 

3 
ANNUS MIE.ABILIS. 63^ 

j 

247. i 

Part stays for passage, till a gust pf wind \ 

Ships o'er their forces in a shining sheet ; o| 

Part, creeping under ground, their journey blind *i 

And, climbing from below, their fellows meet. ^ 

248. ;i 
Thus to some desert plain or old wood -side j 

Dire night-hags come from far to dance their round, j 

And o'er broad rivers on their fiends they ride 5 

Or sweep in clouds above the blasted ground. 1 

249. '] 
No help avails : for hydra-like, the fire . 1 

Lifts up his hundred heads to aim his way ; * 

And scarce the wealthy can one half retire ; 

Before he rushes in to share the prey. i 

250. i 
The rich grow suppliant and the poor grow proud : i; 

Those offer mighty gain and these ask more ; 

So void of pity is the ignoble crowd, ^ 

When others' ruin may increase their store. 1 

251. ';". 
As those who live by shores with joy behold 4 

Some wealthy vessel split or stranded nigh, 'j 

And from the rocks leap down for shipwracked gold ! 

And seek the tempest which the others fly : ij 

252. ^ 
So these but wait the owner's last despair ) 

And what's permitted to the flames invade ; ' i 

Even from their jaws they hungry morsels tear, v 

And on their backs the spoils of Vulcan lade, ;|' 

253. ''l 
The days were all in this lost labour spent ; 

And when the weary king gave place to night, i 



64 dryden's poems. 

His beams he to Ms royal brother lent, 
And so shone still in his reflective light. 

254. 
Night came, but without darkness or repose, 

A dismal picture of the general doom ; 
Where souls distracted, when the trumpet blows, 

And half unready with their bodies come. 

255. 
Those who have homes, when home they do repair, 

To a last lodging call their wandering friends : 
Their short uneasy sleeps are broke with care, 

To look how near their own destruction tends ; 

256. 
Those who have none sit round where once it was. 

And with full eyes each wonted room require, 
Haunting the yet warm ashes of the place, 

As murdered men walk where they did expire. 

257. 
Some stir up coals and watch the vestal fire. 

Others in vain from sight of ruin run 
And, while through burning labyrinths they retire. 

With loathing eyes repeat what they would shun. 

258. 
The most in fields like herded beasts lie down, 

To dews obnoxious on the grassy floor ; 
And while their babes in sleep their sorrows drown, 

Sad parents watch the remnants of their store. 

259. 
While by the motion of the flames they guess 

What streets are burning now, and what are near ; 
An infant, waking, to the paps would press 

And meets instead of milk a falling tear 



ANNUS MIRABILIS. 65 

260. 
No thouglit can ease them but their Sovereign's care,. 

Whose praise the afflicted as their comfort sing ; 
Even those whom want might drive to just despair 

Think life a blessing under such a king. 

261. 

Meantime he sadly suffers in their grief, 

Outweeps an hermit and outprays a saint j 
All the long night he studies their relief, 
•How they may be supplied and he may want. 

262. 
" G-od," said he, " Thou patron of my days, 

Guide of my youth in exile and distress I 
Who me unfriended broughtst by wondrous ways. 

The kingdom of my fathers to possess : 

263. 
"Be Thou my judge, with what unwearied care 

I since have laboured for my people's good,, 
To bind the bruises of a civil war 

And stop the issues of their wasting bloods 

264. 
" Thou who hast taught me to forgive the ill 

And recompense as friends the good misled^ 
If mercy be a precept of Thy will. 

Return that mercy on Thy servant's head. 

265. 
" Or if my heedless youth has stepped astray^ 

Too soon forgetful of Thy gracious hand^ 
On me alone Thy just displeasure lay, 

But take Thy judgments from this mourning landL 

266. 
** We all have sinned, and Thou hast laid us low 
As humble earth from whsnc3 at first we came s 



-^6 DRYDEN'S POEMS. 

Like flying shades before tlie clouds we show,- 
Aad shrink like parchment in consuming flame. 

267. 
"" let it be enough what Thou hast done, 

When spotted deaths ran armed through every street, 
"With poisoned darts, which not the good could shun, 

The speedy could outfly or valiant meet. 

268. 
"" The living few and frequent funerals then 

Proclaimed Thy wrath on this forsaken place ; 
^nd now those few, who are returned again, 

Thy searching judgments to their dwellings trace. 

269. 
^ pass not, Lord, an absolute decree 

Or bind Thy sentence unconditional, 
But in Thy sentence our remorse foresee 

And in that foresight this Thy doom recall. ' 

270. 
** Thy threatenings, Lord, as Thine Thou mayest revoke : 

But if immutable and fixed they stand, 
jContinue still Thyself to give the stroke, 

.And not let foreign foes oppress Thy land." 

271. 
The Eternal heard, and from the heavenly quire 

Chose out the cherub with the flaming sword, 
.And bade him swiftly drive the approaching fire 

From where our naval magazines were stored. 

272. 
"The blessed minister his wings displayed. 

And like a shooting star he cleft the night ; 
SEe charged the flames, and those that disobeyed 

Hft lashed to duty with his sword of light. 



ANNUS MIBABILIS. 

273. 
The fugfitive flames, chastised, went forth to prey 

On pious structures by our fathers reared ; 
By which to Heaven they did affect the way, 

Ere faith in churchmen without works was heard. 

274. 
The wanting orphans saw with watery eyes 

Their founders' charity in dust laid low, 
And sent to God their ever-answered cries ; 

For he protects the poor who made them so. 

275. 
Nor could thy fabric, Paul's, defend thee long, 

Though thou wert sacred to thy Maker's praise, 
Though made immortal by a poet's song, 

And poets' songs the Theban walls could raise. 

276. 
The daring flames peeped in and saw from far 

The awful beauties of the sacred quire ; 
But since it was profaned by civil war. 

Heaven thought it fit to have it purged by fire. 

277. 
Now down the narrow streets it swiftly came 

And widely opening, did on both sides prey ; 
This benefit we sadly owe the flame, 

If only ruin must enlarge our way. 

278. 
And now four days the sun had seen our woes. 

Four nights the moon beheld the incessant fire ; 
It seemed as if the stars more sickly rose 

And farther from the feverish north retire. 

279. 
In the empyrean Heaven, the blessed abode, 
The thrones and the dominions prostrate lie. 



68 DEYDEN S POEMS. 

Not daring to behold their angry God ; 
And a huslied silence damps the tuneful sky. 

280. 
At length the Almighty cast a pitying eye, 

And mercy softly touched His melting breast ; 
He saw the town's one half in rubbish lie 

And eager flames give on to storm the rest. 

281. 
An hollow crystal pyramid he takes, 

In firmamental waters dipped above ; 
Of it a broad extinguisher he makes. 

And hoods the flames that to their quarry strove. 

282. 
The vanquished fires withdraw from every place 

Or, full with feeding, sink into a sleep : 
Each household G-enius shows again his face 

And from the hearths the little Lares creep. 

283. 
Our king this more than natural change beholds, 

With sober joy his heart and eyes abound ; 
To the All-good his lifted hands he folds, 

And thanks him low on his redeemed ground. 

284. 
As, when sharp frosts had long constrained the earth, 

A kindly thaw unlocks it with mild rain, 
And first the tender blade peeps up to birth. 

And straight the green fields laugh with promised 
grain : 

285. 
By such degrees the spreading gladness grew 
In every heart which fear had froze before ; 
The standing streets with so mxi.ch joy they view 
That with, less grief the perished they deplore. 



ANNUS MIRABILIS. 69 

286. 
The father of the people opened wide 

His stores, and all the poor with plenty fed : 
Thus God's anointed God's own place supplied 

And filled the empty with his daily bread. 

287. 
This royal bounty brought its own reward 

And in their minds so deep did print the sense, 
That if their ruins sadly they regard, 

'Tis but with fear the sight might drive him thence. 

288. 
But so may he live long that town to sway 

Which by his auspice they will nobler make, 
As lie will hatch their ashes by his stay 

And not their humble ruins now forsake. 

289. 
They have not lost their loyalty by fire ; 

Nor is their courage or their wealth so low, 
That from his wars they poorly would retire 

Or beg the pity of a vanquished foe. 

290. 
Not with more constancy the Jews of old, 

By Cyrus from rewarded exile sent. 
Their royal city did in dust behold 

Or with more vigour to rebuild it went. 

291. 
The utmost malice of their stars is past, 

Arid two dire comets which have scourged the town 
In their own plague and fire have breathed their last, 

Or dimly in their sinking sockets frown. 

292. 
Now frequent trines the happier lights among 
And high-riaised Jove from his dark prison freed, 



70 dbyden's poems. 

Those weiglits took off that on his planet hung, 
Will gloriously the new-laid work succeed. 

293. 
Methinks already from this chymic flame 

I see a city of more precious mould. 
Rich as the town which gives the Indies name, 

With silver paved and all divine with gold. 

294. 
Already, labouring with a mighty fate, 

She shakes the rubbish from her mounting brow, 
And seems to have renewed her charter's date 

Which Heaven will to the death of time allow. 

295. 
More great than human now and more august, 

New deified she from her fires does rise : 
Her widening streets on new foundations trust, 

And, opening, into larger parts she flies. 

296. 
Before, she like some shepherdess did show 

Who sate to bathe her by a river's side, 
Not answering to her fame, but rude and low, 

Nor taught the beauteous arts of modern pride, 

297. 
Now like a maiden queen she will behold 

Prom her high turrets hourly suitors come ; 
The East with incense and the West with gold 

Will stand like suppliants to receive her doom. 

298. 
The silver Thames, her own domestic flood, 

Shall bear her vessels like a sweeping train, ' 
And often wind, as of his mistress proud, 

With longing eyes to meet her face again. 



AJNJSUiS MlflABILIS. 71 

299. 
The wealthy Tagus and the wealthier Rhine 

The glory of their towns no more shall boast, 
And Seine, that would with Belgian rivers join^ 

Shall find her lustre stained and traflBlc lost. 

300. 
The venturous merchant who designed more far 

And touches on our hospitable shore, 
Charmed with the splendour of this northern star, 

Shall here unlade him and depart no more. 

301. 
Our powerful navy shall no longer meet 

The wealth of France or Holland to invade ; 
The beauty of this town without a fleet 

From all the world shall vindicate her trade. 

~ 302. 
And while this famed emporium we prepare, 

The British ocean shall such triumphs boast, 
That those who now disdain our trade to share , 

Shall rob like pirates on our wealthy coast.. 

303. 

Already we have conquered half the war, 
And the less dangerous part is left behind ;: 

Our trouble now is but to make them dare,^ 
And not so great to vanquish as to find. 

304. 
Thus to the Eastern wealth through storms we go-^ 

But now, the Cape once doubled, fear no more ; 
A constant trade- wind will securely blow 

And gently lay us on the spicy shore. 



72 



ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL. 

. A POEM. 



TO THE READER. 

'Tis not my intention to make an apology for my poem ; some will 
think it needs no excuse, and others will receive none. The design, 
I am sure, is honest ; but he who draws his pen for one party must 
■expect to make enemies of the other. For wit and fool are conse- 
quents of Whig and Tory, and every man is a knave or an ass to the 
contrary side. There's a treasury of merits in the fanatic church as 
well as in the Papist, and a pennyworth to be had of saintship, 
lionesty, and poetry, for the lewd, the factious, and the blockheads ; 
Tjut the longest chapter in Deuteronomy has not curses enough for an 
-Anti-Bromingham. My coinfort is, their inauifest prejudice to my 
•cause will render their judgment of less authority against me. Yet if 
a poem have a genius, it will force its own reception iu the world ; for 
there is a sweetness in good verse, which tickles even while it hurts ; 
-and no man can be heartily angry with him who pleases him against 
his will. The commendation of adversaries is the greatest triumph of 
a, writer, bec-ause it never comes unless extorted. But I can be 
satisfied on more easy terras : if I happen to please the more mode- 
rate sort, I shall be sure of an honest party, and, in all probability, of 
the best judges ; for the least concerned are commonly the least cor- 
rupt. And I confess I have laid in fjr those, by rebating the satire, 
where justice would allow it, from carrying too sharp an edge. They 
who can criticise so weakly as to imagine I have done my worst, may 
be convinced at their own cost that I can write severely with more 
ease than I can gently. I liave but laughed at some men's follies, 
when I could have declaimed against their vices, and other men'.s 
virtues I have commended as freely as I have taxed their crimes. And 
now, if you are a malicious reader, I expect you should return upon 
me that I, affect to be thought more impartial than I am; but if men 
-are not to be judged by their professions, God forgive you common- 
wealth's-men for professing so plausibly for the government. You 
cannot be so unconscionable as to charge me for not subscribing of 
my name, for that would reflect too grossly upon your own party, who 
.never dare, though they have the advantage of a jury to secure them. 
If you like not my poem, the fault may possibly be in my writing- 



ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL. 73^ 

though 'tis hard for an author to judge against himself; but more 
probably 'tis in your morals, which cannot bear the truth of it. The 
violent on both sides will condemn the character of Absalom, as either 
too favourably or too hardly drawn ; but they are not the violenli 
whom I desire to please. The fault on the right hand is to extenuate, 
palliate, and indulge, and, to confess freely, I have endeavoured to 
commit it. Besides the respect which I owe his birth, I have a 
greater for his heroic virtues, and David himself could not be more 
tender of the young man's life than I would be of his reputation. 
But since the most excellent natures are always the most easy, and, 
as being such, are the soonest perverted by ill counsels, especially 
when baited with fame and glory, it is no more a wpnder that he 
witltstood not the temptations of Achitophel than it was for Adam 
not to have resisted the two devils, the sei'pent and the woman. 
The conclusion of the story I purposely forebore to prosecute, because 
I could not obtain from myself to sliow Absalom unfortunate. The 
frame of it was cut out but fur a picture to the waist, and if the 
draught be so far true, it is as much as I designed. 

Were I the inventor, who am only the historian, I should certainly 
conclude the X'ieee with the reconcilement of Absalom to David. AncS 
who knows but this jnay come to pass? Things were not brought 
to an extremity where I left the story ; there seems yet to be roona 
left for a composure ; hereafter there may only be for pity. I have 
not so much as an uncharitable wish against Achitophel, but arrs 
content to be accused of a good-natured error, and to hope with 
Origen that the devil himself may at last be saved. For which reasoDj. 
in this poem, he is neither brought to set his house in order, noT to 
dispose of his person afterwards as he in wisdom shall tliiuk fit, 
God is infinitely merciful ; and his vicegerent is only not so, because 
he is not infinite. 

The true end of satire is the amendment of vices by correction. And 
he who vn-ites honestly is no more an enemy to the offender than the 
physician to the patient, when he prescribes harsh remedies to an in- 
veterate disease ; for those are only in order to prevent the chirurgeon's 
work of an Ense rescindendum, wliich I wish not to my very enemies. 
To conclude all ; if the body politic have any analogy to the natural, 
in my weak judgment, an act of oblivion were as necessary in a hot 
distempered state as an opiate would be in a raging fever. 



74 



ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL. 



In pious times, ere priestcraft did beg-iu, 

Before polygamy was made a sin, 

When man on many multiplied Ms kind, 

Ere one. to one was cursedly confined, 

IVTien nature prompted and no law denied 

Promiscuous use of concubine and bride, 

Then Israel's monarch after Heaven's own heart 

His rigorous warmth did variouslv impart 

To wives and slaves, and, wide as his command, 

Scattered his Maker's image through the land. 

Michal, of royal blood, the crown did wear, 

A soil ungrateful to the tiller's care : 

Not so the rest ; for several mothers bore 

To god-like David several sons before. 

But since like slaves his bed they did ascend, 

l^o true succession could their seed attend. 

Of all this numerous progeny was none 

So beautiful, so brave, as Absalon : 

Whether, inspired by Pome diviner lust, 

His father got him with a greater gust, • 

Or that his conscious destiny made way 

By manly beauty to imperial sway. 

Harly in foreign fields he won renown 

With kings and states allied to Israelis crown ; 

In peace the thoughts of war he could remove 

And seemed as he were only born for love. 

Whate'er he did was done with so much ease, 

In him alone 'twas natural to please ; 

His motions all accompanied with grace, 

And Paradise was opened in his face. 

With secret joy indulgent David viewed 



ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL. 75 

His youthful image in his son renewed ; 

To all his wishes nothing he denied 

And made the charming Annabel his bride. 

What faults he had (for who from faults is free ?) 

His father could not or he would not see. 

Some warm excesses, which the law forbore, 

Were construed youth that purged by boiling o'er ; 

And Amnon's murder by a specious name 

Was called a just revenge for injured fame. 

Thus praised and loved, the noble youth remained, 

While David undisturbed in Sion reigned. 

But life can never be sincerely blest ; 

Heaven punishes the bad, and proves the best. 

The Jew«, a headstrong, moody, murmuring race 

As ever tried the extent and stretch of grace ; 

(xod's pampered people, whom, debauched with ease, 

No king could govern nor no Grod could please ; 

Oods they had tried of every shape and size 

That godsmiths could produce or priests devise ; 

These Adam -wits, too fortunately free, 

Began to dream they wanted liberty-; 

And when no rule, no precedent was found 

Of men by laws less circumscribed and bound, 

They led their wild desires to woods and caves . 

And thought that all but savages were slaves. 

They wiio, when Saul was dead, without a blow 

Made foolish Ishbosheth the crown forego ; 

Who banished David did from Hebron bring, 

And with a general shout proclaimed him King j 

Those very Jews who at their very best 

Their humour more than loyalty exprest, 

Now wondered why so long they had obeyed 

An idol monarch which their hands had made ; 

Thought they might ruin him thej^ could create 

Or melt him to that golden calf, a State. 

But these were random bolts : no formed design 

Nor interest made the factious crowd to ioi:i ; 



76 dryden's poems. 

The sober part of Israel, free from stain, 
Well knew the value of a peaceful reign ; 
And looking backward with a wise affright 
Saw seams of wounds dishonest to the sight, 
In contemplation of whose ugly scars 
They cursed the memory of civil wars. 
The moderate sort of men, thus qualified, 
Inclined the balance to the better side ; 
And David's mildness managed it so well, 
The bad found no occasion to rebel. 
But when to sin our biassed nature leans, 
The careful Devil is still at hand with means 
And providently pimps for ill desires : 
The good old cause, revived, a plot requires, 
Plots true or false are necessary things, 
To raise up commonwealths and ruin kings. 

The inhabitants of old Jerusalem 
Were Jebusites ; the town so called from them. 
And theirs the native right. 
But when the chosen people grew, more strong. 
The rightful cause at length became the wrong j 
And every loss the men of Jebus bore, 
They still were thought G-od's enemies the more. 
Thus worn and weakened, well or ill content. 
Submit they must to David's government : 
Impoverished and deprived of all command, 
Their taxes doubled as they lost their land ; 
And, what was harder yet to flesh and blood. 
Their gods disgraced, and burnt like common wood. 
This set the heathen priesthood in a flame, 
For priests of all religions are the same. 
Of whatsoe'er descent their godhead be, 
Stock, stone, or other homely pedigree, 
In his defence his servants are as bold, 
As if he had been born of beaten gold. 
The Jewish Rabbins, though their enemies. 



ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL. 77 

In this conclude them honest men and wise . 

For 'twas their duty, all the learned think, 

To espouse his cause by whom they eat and drink. 

From hence began that Plot, the nation's curse, 

Bad in itself, but represented worse. 

Raised in extremes, and in extremes decried, 

With oaths affirmed, with dying vows denied, 

Not weighed or winnowed by the multitude. 

But swallowed in the mass, unchewed and crude. 

Some truth there was, but dashed and brewed with 

lies 
To please the fools and puzzle all the wise : 
Succeeding times did equal folly call 
Believing nothing or believing all. 
The Egyptian rites the Jebusites embraced. 
Where gods were recommended by their taste ; 
Such savoury deities must needs be good 
As served at once for worship and for food. 
By force they could not introduce these gods, 
For ten to one in former days was odds : 
So fraud was used, the sacrificer's trade ; 
Fools are more hard to conquer than persuade. 
Their busy teachers mingled with the Jews 
And raked for converts even the court and stews : 
Which Hebrew priests the more unkindly took, 
Because the fleece accompanies the flock. 
Some thought they Grod's anointed meant to slay 
By guns, invented since full many a day : 
Our author swears it not ; but who can know 
How far the Devil and Jebusites may go ? 
This plot, which failed for want of common sense, 
Had yet a deep and dangerous consequence ; 
For as, when raging fevers boil the blood, 
The standing lake soon floats into a flood, 
And every hostile humour which before 
Slept quiet in its channels bubbles o'er ; 
So several factions from, this first ferment 



78 DRYDEN'S POEMfc). 

Work up to foam and threat the government. 

Some by their friends, more by themselves thought 

wise, 
Opposed the power to which they could not rise. 
Some had in courts been great, and thrown from 

thence, 
Like fiends were hardened in impenitence. 
Some by their Monarch's fatal mercy grown 
From pardoned rebels kinsmen to the throne 
Were raised in power and public office high ; 
Strong bands, if bands ungrateful men could tie. 
Of these the false Achitophel was first, 
A name to all succeeding ages curst : 
For close designs and crooked counsels fit, 
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit. 
Restless, unfixed in principles and place, 
In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace ; 
A fiery soul, which working out its way, 
Fretted the pigmy body to decay 
And o'er-informed the tenement of clay. 
A daring pilot in extremity, 

Pleased with the danger, when the waves went'high, 
He sought the storms ; but for a calm unfit, 
Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit. 
G-reat wits are sure to madness near allied 
And thin partitions do their bounds divide ; 
Else, why should he, with wealth and honour blest, 
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest ? 
Punish a body which he could not please, 
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease ? 
And all to leave what with his toil he won 
To that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son, 
Grot, while his soul did huddled notions try. 
And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy. 
In friendship false, implacable in hate, 
Resolved to ruin or to rule the state ; 
To compass this the triple bond he broke, 



AEiAL03I AND ACHITOPHEL. 7^ 

Tke pillars of tlie public safety shook, 
And fitted Israel for a foreign yoke ; 
Then, seized with fear, yet still affecting fame^ 
Usurped a patriot's all-atoning name. 
So easy still it proves in factious times 
With public zeal to cancel private crimes. 
How safe is treason and how sacred ill, 
Where none can sin against the people's will, 
Where crowds can wink and no offence be knowny 
Since in another's guilt they find their own ! 
*Yet fame deserved no enemy can grudge ; 
The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge. 
In Israel's courts ne'er sat an Abbethdin 
With more discerning eyes or hands more clean, 
TJnbribed, unsought, the wretched to redress, 
Swift of despatch and easy of access. 
Oh ! had he been content to serve the crown 
With virtues only proper to the gown, 
Or had the rankness of the soil been freed 
From cockle that oppressed the noble seed. 
David for him his tuneful harp had strung' 
And Heaven had wanted one immortal son^. 
But wild ambition loves to slide, not stand, 
And Fortune's ice prefers to Virtue's land. 
Achitophel, grown weary to possess 
A lawful fame and lazy happiness, 
Disdained the golden fruit to gather free 
And lent the crowd his arm to shake the tree. 
Now, manifest of crimes contrived long since, 
He stood at bold defiance with his Prince, 
Held up the buckler of the people's cause 
Against the crown, and skulked behind the laws* 
The wished occasion of the Plot he takes ; 
Some circumstances finds, but more he makes ;. 
By buzzing emissaries fills the ears 
Of listening crowds with jealousies and fears^. 
Of arbitrary counsels brought to light. 



DE,YD3N S POEMS. 

And proves the King himself a Jebusite. 

Weak arguments ! which yet he knew full well 

Were strong with people easy to rebel. 

For governed by the moon, the giddy Jews 

Tread the same track when she the prime renews : 

And once in twenty years their scribes record, 

By natural instinct they change their lord. 

Achitophel still wants a chief, and none 

Was found so fit as warlike Absalon, 

Not that he wished his greatness to create, i 

For politicians neither love nor hate : ,-; 

Eut, for he knew his title not allowed '■ 

Would keep him still depending on the crowd, i 

That kingly power, thus ebbing out, might be \ 

Drawn to the dregs of a democracy. .j 

Him he attempts with studied arts to please . j 

And sheds his venom in such words as these : ;* 

" Auspicious prince, at whose nativity i 

Some royal planet ruled the southern sky, \ 
Thy longing country's darling and desire. 

Their cloudy pillar and their guardian fire, '] 

Their second Moses, whose extended wand v 
Divides the seas and shows the promised land, 

Whose dawning day in every distant age <i 

Has exercised the sacred prophet's rage, ' 

The people's prayer, the glad diviner's theme, ; 

The young men's vision and the old men's dream, I 

Thee Saviour, thee the nation's vows confess, f 

And never satisfied with seeing bless : :• 
Swift unbespoken pomps thy steps proclaim, 

And stammering babes are taught to lisp thy name. ' 

How long wilt thou the general joy detain, ! 

Starve and defraud the people of thy reign ? J 

•Content ingloriously to pass thy days, '-i 
liike one of virtue's fools that feeds on praise ; 

Till thy fresh glories, which now shine so bright, ] 



ABSALOM AND ACHIJOPHrJL. 81 

G-row stale and tarnish, with onr daily sight. 
Believe me, royal youth, th.y fruit must be 
Or gathered ripe, or rot upon the tree. 
Heaven has to all allotted, soon or late, 
Some lucky revolution of their fate ; 
Whose motions if we watch and guide with skill, 
(For human good depends on human will,) 
Our fortune rolls as from a smooth descent 
And from the first impression takes the bent ; 
JBut, if unseized, she glides away like wind 
And leaves repenting folly far behind. 
Now, now she meets you with a glorious prize 
And spreads her locks before her as she flies. 
Had thus old David from whose loins you spring, 
Not dared, when Fortune called him to be King, 
At G-ath an exile he might still remain. 
And Heaven's anointing oil had been in vain. 
Let his successful youth your hopes engage, 
But shun the example of declining age. 
Behold him setting in his western skies, 
The shadows lengthening as the vapours rise ; 
He is not now, as when, on Jordan's sand, 
The joyful people thronged to see him land, 
■Covering the beach and blackening all the strand, 
Bnt like the Prince of Angels, from his height 
Comes tumbling downward with diminished light : 
Betrayed by one poor Plot to public scorn, . 
(Our only blessing since his curst return,) 
Those heaps of people, which one sheaf did bind. 
Blown off and scattered by a puff of wind. 
IVhat strength can he to your designs oppose, 
Naked of friends, and round beset with foes ? 
If Pharaoh's doubtful succour he should use, 
A foreign aid would more incense the Jews ; 
Proud Egypt would dissembled friendship bring, 
Foment the war, but not support the King ; 
Nor would the royal party e'er unite 



82 dryden's poems. 

With. Pharaoh's arms to assist the Jebusite ; 
Or, if they should, their interest soon would break 
And with such odious aid make David weak. 
All sorts of men, by my successful arts 
Abhorring kings, estrange their altered hearts 
From David's rule : and 'tis the general cry, 
Religion, commonwealth, and liberty. 
If you, as champion of the public good, 
Add to their arms a chief of royal blood, 
What may not Israel hope, and what applause 
Might such a general gain by such a cause ? 
Not barren praise alone, that gaudy flower, 
Fair only to the sight, but solid power ; 
And nobler is a limited command, 
G-iven by the love of all your native land, 
Than a successive title, long and dark, 
Drawn from the mouldy rolls of IS^oah's ark." 

What cannot praise effect in mighty minds, 
When flattery soothes and when ambition blinds ? 
Desire of power, on earth a vicious weed, 
Yet sprung from high is of celestial seed ; 
In Grod 'tis glory, and when men aspire, 
'Tis but a spark too much of heavenly fire. 
The ambitious youth, too covetous of fame, 
Too full of angel's metal in his frame. 
Unwarily was led from virtue's ways, 
Made drunk with honour and debauched with praise 
Half loth and half consenting to the ill, 
For loyal blood within him struggled still, 
He thus replied : " And what pretence h.ave I 
To take up arms for public liberty ? 
My father governs with unquestioned right, 
The faith's defender and mankind's delight, 
Good, gracious, just, observant of the laws ; 
And Heaven by wonders has espoused his cause. 
Whom has he wronged in all his peaceful reign 2 



ABSALOM AND ACHITOPKEL. 83 

Who sues for justice to his throne in vain ? 

What millions has he pardoned of his foes 

Whom just revenge did to his wrath expose. 

Mild, easy, humble, studious of our good, 

Inclined to mercy and averse from blood. 

If mildness ill with stubborn Israel suit. 

His crime is G-od's beloved attribute. 

What could he gain his people to betray, 

Or change his right for arbitrary sway ? 

I^et haughty Pharaoh curse with such a reign 

His fruitful Nile, and yoke a servile train. 

If David's rule Jerusalem displease, 

The dog-star heats their brains to this disease. 

Why then should I, encouraging the bad, 

Turn rebel and run popul&.rly mad ? 

Were he a tyrant, who by lawless might 

Oppressed the Jews and raised the Jebusite, 

Well might I mourn : but nature's holy bands 

Would curb my spirits and restrain my hands ; 

The people might assert their liberty. 

But what was right in them were crime in me. 

His favour leaves me nothing to require, 

Prevents my wishes and outruns desire ; 

What more can I expect while David lives ? 

All but his kingly diadem he gives : 

And that" — But there he paused, then sighing said, 

" Is justly destined for a worthier head ; 

For when my father from his toils shall rest 

And late augment the number of the blest, 

His lawful issue shall the throne ascend, 

Or the collateral line, where that shall end. 

His brother, though oppressed with vulgar spite, 

Yet dauntless and secure of native right. 

Of every royal virtue stands possest, 

Still dear to all the bravest and the best. 

His courage foes, his friends his truth proclaim, 

His loyalty the King, the world his fame. 



84 DRYDEN'S POEMS. 

His mercy even the offending crowd will find, 
For sure he conies of a forgiving kind. 
Why should I then repine at Heaven's decree 
Which gives me no pretence to loyalty ? 
Yet oh that fate, propitiously inclined, 
Had raised my birth or had debased my mind, 
To my large soul not all her treasure lent. 
And then betrayed it to a mean descent 1 
I find, I find my mounting spirits bold, 
And David's part disdains my mother's mould. 
Why am I scanted by a niggard birth ? 
My soul disclaims the kindred of her earth, 
And, made for empire, whispers me within. 
Desire of greatness is a god -like sin." 

Him staggering so when Hell's dire agent found, 
While fainting virtue scarce maintained her ground, 
He pours fresh forces in, and thus replies : 

" The eternal GTod, supremely good and wise, 
Imparts not these prodigious gifts in vain. 
What wonders are reserved to bless your reign ! 
Against your will your arguments have shown. 
Such virtues only given to guide a throne. 
Not that your father's mildness I contemn, 
But manly force becomes the diadem. 
'Tis true he grants the people all they crave, 
And more perhaps than subjects ought to have : 
For lavish grants suppose a monarch tame 
And more his goodness than his wit proclaim. 
But when should people strive their bonds to break, 
If not when kings are negligent or weak ? 
Let him give on till he can give no more, 
The thrifty Sanhedriii shall keep him poor ; 
And every shekel which he can receive 
Shall cost a limb of his prerogative. 
To ply him with new plots shall be my care, 
Or plunge him deep in some expensive war ; 



ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEIi. 35 

Wliich wlieii his treasure can no more supply, 
He must witli the remains of -kingship buy. 
His faithful friends our jealousies and fears 
Call Jebusites and Pharaoh's pensioners, 
Whom when our fury from his aid has torn. 
He shall be naked left to public scorn. 
The next successor, whom I fear and hate. 
My arts have made obnoxious to the State, 
Turned all his virtues to his overthrow, 
,,Ajid gained our elders to pronounce a foe. 
His right for sums of necessary gold 
Shall first be pawned, and afterwards be sold ; 
Till time shall ever- wan ting David draw 
To pass your doubtful title into law. 
If not, the people have a right supreme 
To make their kings, for kings are made for them. 
All empire is no more than power in trust. 
Which, when resumed, can be no longer just. 
Succession, for the general good designed, 
In its own wrong a nation cannot bind : 
If altering that the people can relieve. 
Better one suffer than a nation grieve. 
The Jews well know their power : ere Saul they chose 
God was their king, and God they durst depose. 
Urge now your piety, your filial name, 
A father's right and fear of future fame, 
The public good, that universal call, 
To which even Heaven submitted, answers all. 
Nor let his love enchant your generous mind ; 
'Tis Nature's trick to propagate her kind. 
Our fond begetters, who would never die, 
Love but themselves in their posterity. 
Or let his kindness by the effects be tried, 
Or let him lay his vain pretence aside. 
Grod said, He loved your father ; could He bring 
A better proof than to anoint him King ? 
It surely showed, He loved the shepherd well 



86 dryden's poems. 

Who gave so fair a flock as Israel. 

Would David have you thougfht his darling son ? 

What means he then to alienate the crown ? 

The name of godly he may blush to bear ; 

'Tis after G-od's own heart to cheat his heir. 

He to his brother gives supreme command, 

To you a legacy of barren land, 

Perhaps the old harp on which he thrums his lays 

Or some dull Hebrew ballad in your praise. 

Then the next heir, a prince severe and wise, 

Already looks on you with jealous eyes. 

Sees through the thin disguises of your arts. 

And marks your progress in the people's hearts ; 

Though now his mighty soul its grief contains, 

He meditates revenge who least complains ; 

And like a lion, slumbering in the way 

Or sleep dissembling, while he waits his prey, 

His fearless foes within his distance draws. 

Constrains his roaring and contracts his paws, 

Till at the last, his time for fury found, 

He shoots with sudden vengeance from the ground, 

The prostrate vulgar passes o'er and spares, 

But with a lordly rage his hunters tears ; 

Your case no tame expedients will afford, 

Resolve on death or conquest by the sword, 

Which for no less a stake than life you draw, 

And self-defence is Nature's eldest law. 

Leave the warm people no considering time, 

For then rebellion may be thought a crime. 

Prevail yourself of what occasion gives, 

But try your title while your father lives ; 

And, that your arms may have a fair pretence, 

Proclaim you take them in the King's defence ; 

AVhose sacred life each minute would exppse 

To plots from seeming friends and secret foes. 

And who can sound the depth of David's soul f 

Perhaps his fear his kindness may control : 



ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL. 87 

He fears his brother, though he loves his son, 
For plighted vows too late to be undone. 
If so, by force he wishes to be gained, 
Like women's lechery to seem constrained. 
Doubt not : but, when he most affects the frown, 
Commit a pleasing rape upon the crown. 
Secure his person to secure your cause : 
They who possess the Prince possess the laws." 

He said, and this advice above the rest 
With Absalom's mild nature suited best ; 
Unblamed of life (ambition set aside). 
Not stained with cruelty nor puffed with pride, 
How happy had he been, if Destiny 
Had higher placed his birth or not so high ! 
His king'ly virtues might have claimed a throne 
And blessed all other countries but his own ; 
But charming greatness since so few refuse, 
'Tis juster to lament him than accuse. 
Strong were his hopes a rival to remove, 
With blandishments to gain the public love, 
To head the faction while their zeal was hot, 
And popularly prosecute the plot. 
To further this, Achitophel unites 
The malcontents of all the Israelites, 
Whose differing parties he could wisely join 
For several ends to serve the same design ; 
The best (and of the princes some were such), 
Who thought the power of monarchy too much ; 
Mistaken men and patriots in their hearts, 
Not wicked, but seduced by impious arts ; 
By these the springs of property were bent 
And wound so high they cracked the government. 
The next for interest sou'j^ht to embroil the state 
To sell their duty at; a dearer rate, 
And make their Jewish markets of the throne ; 
Pretending public good to serve their own. 



dryden's poems. 

others thouglit kings an useless heavy load, 

Who cost too much and did too little good. 

These were for laying honest David by 

On principles of pure good husbandry. 

With them joined all the haranguers of the throng 

That thought to get preferment by the tongue. 

Who follow next a double danger bring, 

Not only hating David, but the King ; 

The Solymsean rout, well versed of old 

In godly faction and in treason bold, 

Cowering and quaking at a conqueror's sword, 

But lofty to a lawful prince restored. 

Saw with disdain an Ethnic plot begun 

And scorned by Jebusites to be outdone. 

Hot Levites headed these ; who pulled before 

From the ark, which in the Judges' days they bore. 

Resumed their cant, and with a zealous cry 

Pursued their old beloved theocracy, 

Where Sanhedrin and priest enslaved the nation 

And justified their spoils by inspiration ; 

For who so fit for reign as Aaron's race, 

If once dominion they could found in grace ? 

These led the pack, though not of surest scent, 

Yet deepest mouthed against the government. 

A numerous host of dreaming saints succeed 

Of the true old enthusiastic breed : 

'Gainst form and order they their power employ, 

Nothing to build and all things to destroy. 

But far more numerous was the herd of such 

Who think too little and who talk too much. 

These out of mere instinct, they knew not why. 

Adored their fathers' God and property. 

And by the same blind benefit of Fate 

The Devil and the Jebusite did hate : 

Born to be saved even in their own despite. 

Because they could not help believing right. 

Such were tha tools ; but a whole Hvr]ra more 



ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL. 89 

"Remains of sprouting heads too long to score. 

Some of their chiefs were princes of the land ; 

In the first rank of these did Zimri stand, 

A man so various that he seamed to be 

Not one, but all mankind's epitome : 

Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong. 

Was everything by starts and nothing long ; 

But in the course of one revolving moon 

Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon ; 

Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking, 

l^sides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking. 

Blest madman, who could every hour employ 

With something new to wish or to enjoy ! :| 

Railing and praising were his usual themes, j 

And both, to show his judgment, in extremes : i 

So over violent or over civil * 

That every man with him was God or Devil. 

In squandering wealth was his peculiar art ; .] 

N"othing went unrewarded but desert. \ 

Beggared by fools whom still he found too late, 'i 

He had his jest, and they had his estate. i 

He laughed himself from Court ; then sought relief | 

By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief : 

For spite of him, the weight of business fell 

On Absalom and wise Achitophel ; i 

Thus wicked but in will, of means bereft. 

He left not faction, but of that was left. 

Titles and names 'twere tedious to rehearse 
Of lords below the dignity of verse. 
Wits, warriors, commonwealth's-men were the best ; 
Xind husbands and mere nobles all the rest. 
And therefore in the name of dulness be 
'The well-hung Balaam and cold Caleb free ; 
And canting Nadab let oblivion damn 
Who made new porridge for the paschal lamb. 
Let friendship's Moly band some names assure. 
Some their own worth and some let scorn secure. 



90 dryben's poems. 

Nor shall th 3 rascal rabble here bave place 

Whom kings, no titles gave, and God no grace : 

Not bull-faced Jonas, who could statutes draw ^ 

To mean rebellion and make treason law. 

But he, though bad, is followed by a worse, 

The wretch who Heaven's 'anointed dared to curse ;; 

Shimei, whose youth did early promise bring 

Of zeal to Grod and hatred to his King, 

Did wisely from expensive sins refrain 

And never broke the Sabbath but for gain : 

Nor ever was he known an oath to vent 

Or curse, unless against the government. 

Thus heaping wealth by the most ready way 

Among the Jews, which was to cheat and pray ;. 

The City, to reward his pious hate 

Against his master, chose him magistrate. 

His hand a vare of justice did uphold, 

His neck was loaded with a chain of gold. 

During his office treason was no crime, 

The sons of Belial had a glorious time ; 

For Shimei, though not prodigal of pelf, 

Yet loved his wicked neighbour as himsolf. 

When two or three were gathered to declaim 

Against the monarch of Jerusalem, 

Shimei was always in the midst of them : 

And if they cursed the King when he was by, 

Would rather curse than break good company. 

If any durst his factious friends accuse, 

He packed a jury of dissenting Jews ; 

Whose fellow-feeling in the godly cause 

Would free the suffering saint from human laws *. 

For laws are orly made to punish those 

Who serve the King, and to protect his foes. 

If any leisure time he had from power. 

Because 'tis sin to misemploy an hour. 

His business was by writing to persuade 

That kings were useless and a clog to trade ; 



ABSALOM AND AOHITOPHEL. 91 

And that his noble style he might refine, 

No Rechabite more shunned the fumes of wine. 

Chaste were his cellars, and his shrieval board 

The grossness of a city feast abhorred ; 

His cooks with long disuse their trade forgot ; 

Cool was his kitchen, though his brains were hot. 

Such frugal virtue malice may accuse, 

But sure 'twas necessary to the Jews : 

For towns once burnt such magistrates require 

As dare not tempt G-od's providence by fire. 

"^i^ath spiritual food he fed his servants well, 

But free from flesh that made the Jews rebel : 

And Moses' laws he held in more account 

For forty days of fasting in the mount. 

To speak the rest, who better are forgot, 

"Would tire a well-breathed witness of the plot. 

Yet, Corah, thou shalt from oblivion pass ; 

Erect thyself, thou monumental brass. 

High as the serpent of thy metal made. 

While nations stand secure beneath thy shade. 

What though his birth were base, yet comets rise 

From earthy vapours, ere they shine in skies. 

Prodigious actions may as well be done 

By weaver's issue as by prince's son. 

This arch-attester for the public good 

By that one deed ennobles all his blood. 

Who ever asked the witnesses' high race 

Whose oath with martyrdom did Stephen grace ? 

Ours was a Levite, and as cimes went then, 

His tribe were G-od Almighty's gentlemen. 

Sunk were his eyes, his voice was harsh and loud, 

Sure signs he neither choleric was nor proud : 

His long chin proved his wit, his saint-like grace 

A church vermilion and a Moses' face. 

His memory, miraculously great, 

Could plots exceeding man's belief repeat ; 

Which therefore cannot be accounted lies. 



92 DETDEN'S POEMS. 

For human wit could never such devise. 

Some future truths are mingled in his book, 

But where the witness failed, the prophet spoke : 

Some things like visionary flights appear ; 

The spirit caught him up, the Lord knows where j 

And gave him his Rabbinical degree 

Unknown to foreign University. 

His judgment yet his memory did excel, 

Which pieced his wondrous evidence so well 

And suited to the temper of the times, 

Then groaning under Jebusitic crimes. 

Let Israel's foes suspect his heavenly call 

And rashly judge his writ apocryphal : 

Our laws for such affronts have forfeits made. 

He takes his life who takes away his trade. 

Were I myself in witness Corah's place, 

The wretch who did me such a dire disgrace 

Should whet my memory, though once forgot, 

To make him an appendix of my plot. 

His zeal to Heaven made him his Prince despise, 

And load his person with indignities. 

But zeal peculiar privilege affords. 

Indulging latitude to deeds and words ; 

And Corah might for Agag's murder call. 

In terms as coarse as Samuel used to Saul, 

What others in his evidence did join. 

The best that could be had for love or coin, 

In Corah's own predicament will fall. 

For Witness is a common name to all. 

Surrounded thus with friends of every sort, 
Deluded Absalom forsakes the court ; 
Impatient of high hopes, urged with renown, 
And fired with near possession of a crown. 
The admiring crowd are dazzled with surprise 
And on his goodly person feed their eyes. 
His joy concealed, he sets himself to show. 



AiiSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL. 93 

On each side bowing popularly low, 

His looks, Ms gestures, and his words lie frames 

And with, familiar ease repeats their names. 

Thus formed by nature, furnished out with arts, 

He glides unfelt into their secret hearts. 

Then with a kind compassionating look, 

And sighs, bespeaking pity ere he spoke. 

Few words he said, but easy those and fit. 

More slow than Hybla-drops and far more sweet» 

" I mourn, my cou*itrymen, your lost estate, 
Though far unable to prevent your fate ; 
Behold a banished man, for your dear cause 
Exposed a prey to arbitrary laws ! 
Yet oh that I alone could be undone, 
Cut off from empire, and no more a son ! 
Now all your liberties a spoil are made, 
Egypt and Tyrus intercept your trade, 
And Jebusites your sacred rites invade. 
My father, whom with reverence yet I name, 
Charmed into ease, is careless of his fame ; 
And, bribed with petty sums of foreign gold, 
Is grown in Bathsheba's embraces old ; 
Exalts his enemies, his friends destroys, 
And all his power against himself employs. 
He gives and let him give, my right away ; 
But why should he his own and yours betray ? 
He, only he can make the nation bleed, 
And he alone from my revenge is freed. 
Take then my tears (with that he wiped his eyes),. 
'Tis all the aid my present power supplies : 
No court-informer can these arms accuse ; 
These arms may sons against their fathers use. 
And 'tis my wish, the next successor's reign 
May make no other Israelite complain." 

Youth, beauty, graceful action seldom fail, 
But common interest always will prevail ; 



94 deyden's poems. 

And pity never ceases to be sliown ' 

To him who makes the people's wrongs his own 

The crowd that still believe their kings oppress, 

With lifted hands their young Messiah bless : 

Who now begins his progress to ordain 

With chariots, horsemen, and a numerous train ; 

From east to west his glories he displays, ' 

And, like the sun, the promised land surveys. 

Fame runs before him as the morning star, 

And shouts of joy salute him from afar ; 

Each house receives him as a guardian god 

And consecrates the place of his abode. 

But hospitable treats did most commend 

Wise Issachar, his wealthy western friend. 

This moving court that caught the people's eyes, 

And seemed but pomp, did other ends disguise ; 

Achitophel had formed it, with intent 

To sound the depths and fathom where it went, 

The people's hearts, distinguish friends from foes, 

And try their strength before they came to blows. 

Yet all was coloured with a smooth pretence 

Of specious love and duty to their prince. 

Religion and redress of grievances. 

Two names that always cheat and always please, 

Are often urged ; and good king David's life 

Endangered by a brother and a wife. 

Thus in a pageant show a plot is made, 

And peace itself is war in masquerade. 

Oh foolish Israel ! never warned by ill I 

Still the same bait, and circumvented still I 

Did ever men forsake their present ease, 

In midst of health imagine a disease, 

Take pains contingent mischiefs to foresee. 

Make heirs for monarchs. and for God decree ? 

What shall we think ? Can people give away 

Both for themselves and sons their native sway ? 

Then they are left defenceless to the sword 



A:PSAL0M AND ACHITOPHEL. 95 

Of each unbounded, arbitrary lord ; 

And laws are vain by wbicli we right enjoy, 

If kings unquestioned can those laws destroy. 

Tet if the crowd be judge of fit and just, 

And kings are only officers in trust, 

Then this resuming covenant was declared 

When kings were made, or is for ever barred. 

Jf those who gave the sceptre could not tie 

By their own deed their own posterity, 

How then could Adam bind his future race ? 

1B.0W could his forfeit on mankind take place 1 

Or how could heavenly justice damn us all 

Who ne'er consented to our father's fail ? 

'Then kings are slaves to those whom they command 

And tenants to their people's pleasure stand. 

Add that the power for property allowed, 

Is mischievously seated in the crowd ; 

For who can be secure of private right. 

If sovereign sway may be dissolved by might ? 

Nor is the people's judgment always true : 

The most may err as grossly as the few. 

And faultless kings run down by common cry 

For vice, oppression, and for tyranny. 

What standard is there in a fickle rout, 

Which, flowing to the mark, runs faster out ? 

Nor only crowds but Sanhedrins may be 

Infected with this public lunacy, 

And share the madness of rebellious times, 

To murder monarchs for imagined crimes. 

If they may give and take whene'er they please, 

Not kings alone, the G-odhead's images, 

But government itself at length must fall 

To nature's state, where all have right to all. 

Yet grant our lords, the people, kings can make, 

What prudent men a settled throne would shake ? 

For whatsoe'er their suiferings were before. 

That change they covet makes them suffer more. 



96 deyden's poems. 

All other errors but disturb a state, 
But innovation is the blow of fate. 
If ancient fabrics nod and threat to fall, 
To patch the flaws and buttress up the wall, 
Thus far 'tis duty ; but here fix the mark ; 
For all beyond it is to touch our ark. 
To change foundations, cast the frame anew, 
Is work for rebels who base ends pursue, 
At once divine and human laws control, 
And mend the parts by ruin of the whole. 
The tampering world is subject to this curse, 
To physic their disease into a worse. 

Now what relief can righteous David bring 2 
How fatal 'tis to be too good a king ! 
Friends he has few, so high the madness grows j: 
Who dare be such must be the people's foes. 
Yet some there were even in the worst of days j. 
Some let me name, and naming is to praise. 

In this short file Barzillai first appears, 
Barzillai crowned with honour and with years.. 
Long since the rising rebels he withstood 
In regions waste beyond the Jordan's flood : 
Unfortunately brave to buoy the state. 
But sinking underneath his master's fate. 
In exile with his godlike prince he mourned, 
For him he suffered, and with him returned. 
The court he practised, not the courtier's art : 
Large was his wealth, but larger was his heart,. 
Which well the noblest objects knew to chuse. 
The fighting warrior, and recording Muse. 
His bed could once a fruitful issue boast : 
Now more than half a father's name is lost. 
His eldest hope, with every grace adorned, 
By me, so Heaven will have it, always mourned 
And always honoured, snatched in manhood's prime^ 



ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL 97 

By unequal fates and Providence's crime : 

Yet not before the goal of honour won, 

All parts fulfilled of subject and of son ; 

Swift was the race, but short the time to run. 

Oh, narrow circle, but of poWer divine, 

Scanted in space, but perfect in thy line ! 

By sea, by land, thy matchless worth was known, 

Arms thy delight, and war was all thy own : 

Thy force infused the fainting Tyrians propped ; 

And haughty Pharaoh found his fortune stopped. 

(5h, ancient honour ! oh, unconquered hand. 

Whom foes unpunished never could withstand I 

But Israel was unworthy of thy name : 

Short is the date of all immoderate fame. 

It looks as Heaven our ruin had designed. 

And durst not trust thy fortune and thy mind. 

Now, free from earth, thy disencumbered soul 

Mounts up, and leaves behind the clouds and starry 

pole : 
From thence thy kindred legions mayest thou bring 
To aid the guardian angel of thy King. 
Here stop, my Muse, here cease thy painful flight ; 
No pinions can pursue immortal height : 
Tell good Barzillai thou canst sing no more. 
And tell thy soul she should have fled before : 
Or fled she with his life, and left this verse 
To hang on her departed patron's hearse ? 
Now take thy steepy flight from heaven, and see 
If thou canst find on earth another he : 
Another he would be too hard to find ; 
See then whom thou canst see not far behind. 
Zadoc the priest, whom, shunning power and place, 
His lowly mind advanced to David's grace. 
With him the Sagan of Jerusalem, 
Of hospitable soul and noble stem ; 
Him of the western dome, whose weighty sense 
Flows in fit words and heavenly eloquence. 



98 dryden's poems. 

The Propliet's sons, by sucli example led, 
To learning and to loyalty were bred : 
For colleges on bounteous kings depend, 
And never rebel was to arts a friend. 
To these succeed the pillars of the laws, 
Who best could plead, and best can judge a cause. 
K'ext them a train of loyal peers ascend ; 
Sharp- judging Adriel, the Muses' friend, 
Himself a Muse : in Sanhedrin's debate 
True to his Prince, but not a slave of state ; 
Whom. David's love with honours did adorn 
That from his disobedient son were torn. 
Jotham of piercing wit and pregnant thought, 
Endued by nature and by learning taught 
To move assemblies, who but only tried 
The worse a while, then chose the better side, 
Nor chose alone, but turned the balance too, 
So much the weight of one brave man can do. 
Hushai, the friend of David in distress. 
In public storms of manly steadfastness ; 
By foreign treaties he informed his youth, 
And joined experience to his native truth. 
His frugal care supplied the wanting throne, 
Frugal for that, but bounteous of his own : 
'Tis easy conduct when exchequers flow, 
But hard the task to manage well the low. 
For sovereign power is too depressed or high, 
When kings are forced to sell, or crowds to buy. 
Indulge one labour more, my weary Muse, 
For Amiel : who can Amiel's praise refuse ? 
Of ancient race by birth, but nobler yet 
In his own worth and without title great : 
The Sanhedrin long time as chief he ruled. 
Their reason guided aiid their passion cooled : 
So dexterous was he in the Crown's defence. 
So formed to speak a loyal nation's sense, 
That, as their band was Israel's tribes in small. 



ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL. 99 

So fit was h.e to represent them all. 
Now rasher charioteers the seat ascend, 
Whose loose careers his steady skill commend : 
They, like the unequal ruler of the day, 
Misguide, the seasons and mistake the way, 
While he, withdrawn, at their mad labour smiles, 
And safe enjoys the sabbath of his toils. 

These were the chief, a small but faithful band 
©f worthies in the breach who dared to stand 
And tempt the united fury of the land. 
With grief they viewed such powerful engines bent 
To batter down the lawful government. 
A numerou3 faction, with pretended frights, 
In Sanhedrins to plume the regal rights ; 
The true successor from the Court removed ; 
The plot by hireling witnesses improved. 
These ills they saw, and, as their duty bound, 
They showed the King- the danger of the wound ; 
That no concessions from the throne would please, 
But lenitives fomented the disease ; 
That Absalom, ambitious of the crown, 
Was made the lure to draw the people down ; 
That false Achitophel's pernicious hate 
Had turned the plot to ruin Church and State ; 
The council violent, the rabble worse ; 
That Shimei taught Jerusalem to curse. 

With all these loads of injuries opprest, 
And long revolving in his careful breast 
The event of things, at last his patience tired, 
Thus from his royal throne, by Heaven inspired, 
The godlike David spoke ; with awful fear 
His train their Maker m their master hear. 
" Thus long have I, by native mercy swayed. 
My wrongs dissembled, my revenge delayed ; 
So willing to forgive the offending age ; 



100 dryden's poems. 

So much, the father did the king assuage. 

But now so far my clemency they slight, 

The offenders question my forgiving right. 

That one was made for many, they contend ; 

But 'tis to rule, for that's a monarch's end. 

They call my tenderness of blood my fear, 

Though manly tempers can the longest bear. 

Yet since they will divert my native course, 

'Tis time to show I am not good by force. 

Those heaped affronts that haughty subjects bring 

Are burdens for a camel, not a king. 

Kings are the public pillars of the State. 

Born to sustain and prop the nation's weight : 

If my young Samson will pretend a call 

To shake the column, let him share the fall ; 

But oh, that yet he would repent and live 1 

How easy 'tis for parents to forgive I 

With how few tears a pardon might be won 

From nature, pleading for a darling son 1 

Poor pitied youth, by my paternal care 

Eaised up to all the height his frame could bear ! 

Had Grod ordained his fate for empire born, 

He would have given his soul another turn : 

Gulled with a patriot's name, whose modern sense 

Is one that would by law supplant his prince ; 

The people's brave, the politician's tool ; 

Never was patriot yet but was a fooL 

Whence comes it that religion and the laws 

Should more be Absalom's than David's cause ? 

His old instructor, ere he lost his place. 

Was never thought endued with so much grace. 

Grood heavens, how faction can a patriot paint ! 

My rebel ever proves my people's saint. 

Would they impose an heir upon the throne ? 

Let Sanhedrims be taught to give their own. 

A king's at least a part of government, 

And mine as requisite as their consent : 



ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL. ]01 

Without my leave a future king to choose 

Infers a right the present to depose. 

True, they petition me to approve their choice : 

But Esau's hands suit ill with Jacob's voice. 

My pious subjects for my safety pray, 

Which to secure, they take my power away. 

From plots and treasons Heaven preserve my years, 

But save me most from my petitioners. 

Unsatiate as the barren womb or grave, 

^od cannot grant so much as they can crave. 

What then is left but with a jealous eye 

To guard the small remains of royalty ? 

The law shall still direct my peaceful sway, 

And the same law teach rebels to obey : 

Votes shall no more established power control, 

Such votes as make a part exceed the whole. 

No groundless clamours shall my friends remove, 

Nor crowds have power to punish ere they prove ; 

For gods and godlike kings their care express 

Still to defend their servants in distress. 

Oh that my power to saving were confined ! 

Why am I forced, like Heaven, against my mind 

To make examples of another kind ? 

Must I at length the sword of justice draw ? 

Oh, curst effects of necessary law ! 

How ill my fear they by my mercy scan ! 

Beware the fury of a patient man. 

Law they require, let Law then show her face ; 

They could not be content to look on G-race, 

Her hinder parts, but with a daring eye 

To tempt the terror of her front and die. 

By their own arts, 'tis righteously decreed, 

Those dire artificers of death shall bleed. 

Against themselves their witnesses will swear, 

Till, viper-like, their mother-plot they tear. 

And suck for nutriment that bloody gore 

Which was their principle of life beiore. 



102 deyden's poems. 

Their Belial with their Beelzebub will fight ; 
Thus on my foes my foes shall do m.e right. 
Nor doubt the event ; for factious crowds engage 
In their first onset all their brutal rage. 
Then let them take an unresisted course , 
Retire and traverse, and delude their force : 
But when they stand all breathless, urge the fight 
And rise upon them with redoubled might : 
For lawful power is still superior found, 
When long driven back at length it stands the 
ground." 

He said. The Almighty, nodding, gave consent ; 
Aid peals of thunder shook the firmament. 
Henceforth a series of new time began, 
The mighty years in long procession ran ; 
Once more the godlike David was restored, 
And willing nations knew their lawful lord. 



103 



THE HIND AND THE PANTHER. 

A POEM, IN THREE PARTS. 



TO THE READER. 

Tni^nation is in too high a ferment for me to expect either fair war 
or even so much as fair quarter from a reader of the opposite party. 
All men are engaged either on this side or that ; and though conscience 
is the common word which is given by both, yet if a writer fall among 
enemies and cannot give the marks of fheir conscience, he is knocked 
down before the reasons of his own are heard. A preface, therefore, 
which is but a bespeaking of favour is altogether useless. What I 
desire the reader should know concerning me he will find in the body 
of the Poem, if he have but the patience to peruse it. Only this adver- 
tisement let him take beforehand, which relates to the merits of the 
cause. No genei-al characters of parties (call 'em either sects or 
churches) can be so fully and exactly drawn as to comprehend all the 
several members of 'em ; at least all such as are received undor that 
denomination. For exsimple, there are some of the Church by law 
established who envy not liberty of conscience to Dissenler.s, as being 
well satisfied that, according to their own principles, tliey ought not to 
persecute them. Yet these by reason of their fewness I could not 
distinguish from the numbers of the rest, with whom tliey are embodied 
in one common name. On the other side, there ai'e many of our sects, 
and more indeed than I could reasonably have hoped, who have with- 
drawn themselves from the communion of the Panther and embraced 
this gracious Indulgence of his Majesty in point of toleratmn. But 
J neither to the one nor the other f>f these is this Satire any w^ay intended : 
■^ 'tis aimed only at the refractory and disobedient on either side. For 
tha';e wlio have come over to the royal ]iarty are consequently sup- 
posed to be out of gun-shot. Our physicians have observed that in 
process of time some diseases liave ahated of their virulence, and have 
in a manner worn out tlieir malignity, so as to be no longer moi-tal ; 
and why may not I suppose the same concerning some of those who 
have formerly been enemies to kingly government as well as Catholic 
religion? I hope they have now another notion of both, as having 
found by comfortable experience that the doctrine of persecution is far 
yfrom being an article of our faitli. 

'Tis not for any private man to censure tlie proceedings of a twreign 



104 dryden's poems. 

Prince ; but wiQiout suspicion of flattery I may praise our own, who ] 
has taken contrary measures, and those more suitable to the spirit of ;: 
Christianity. Some of the Dissenters, in their addresses to his j 
Majesty, have said "that he has restored God to his empire over , 
conscience." I confess I dare not stretch the figure to so great a ■! 
boldness ; but I may safely say that conscience is the royalty and pre- i 
rogative of every private man. He is absolute in his own breast, and 'I 
accountable to no earthly power for that which passes only betwixt ' 
God and him. Those who are driven into the fold are, generally ; 
speaking, rather made hypocrites than converts. L 

This indulgence being granted to all the sects, it ought in reason to :, 
be expected that they should both receive it and. receive it thankfully. ; 
For at this time of day to refuse the benefit and adhere to those whom ^ 
they have esteemed their persecutors, what is it else but publicly to -; 
own that they suffered not before for conscience sake, but only oat of j 
pride and obstinacy to separate from a Church for those impositions 1 
which they now judge may be lawfully obeyed ? After they have so ■, 
long contended for their classical ordination (not to speak of rites and '■ 
ceremonies), will they at length submit to an episcopal ? If they can t 
go so far out of complaisance to their old enemies, methinks a little ' 
reason should persuade 'em to take another step, and see whither that i 
would lead 'em. \ 

Of the receiving this toleration thankfully I shall say no more than •' 
that they ought, and I doubt not they will, consider from what hands ■ 
they received it. 'Tis not from a Cyrus, a heathen prince and a ^ 
foreigner, but from a Christian king, their native sovereign, who '■*. 
expects a return in specie from them, that the kindness whicli he ,t 
has graciously shown them may be retaliated on those of his own .< 
persuasion. I 

As for the Poem in general, I will only thus far satisfy the reader, i 
that it was neither imposed on me nor so much as the subject given 1 
me by any man. It was written during the last winter and the begin- , 
ning of this spring ; though with long interruptions of ill-health and ! 
other hindrances. About a fortnight before I had finished it, his » 
Majesty's Declaration for Liberty of Conscience came abroad ; which 
if I had so soon expected, I might have spared myself the labour of -i 
writing many things which are contained in the Third Part of it. But '. 
I was always in some hope that the Church of England might have '( 
been persuaded to have taken off tlie Penal Laws and the Test, which j 
was one design of the Poem when I proposed to myself the writing ; 
of it. ■■' 

It is evident that some part of it was only occasional, and not first j 
intended. I mean that defence of myself to which every honest man '] 
is bound when he is injuriously attacked in print ; and I refer myself .; 
to the judgment of those wlio have read the Answer to the Defence of! 



THE HIND AND THE PANTHER. \{.o 

the late King's Papers, and that of the Duchess (in -which last i was 
concerned), how charitably I have been represented there. I am now 
informed both of the author and supervisers of his pamphlet, and will 
reply, when I think he can affront me ; for I am of Sociates's opinion, 
that all creatures cannot. In the meantime let him consider whether 
he deserved not a more severe reprehension than I gave him formerly, 
for using so little respect to the memory of those whom he pretended 
to answer; and at his leisure look out for some original Treatise of 
Humility, written by any Protestant in English, I believe I may say 
in any other tongue : for the magnified piece of Dun comb on that 
subject, which either he must mean or none, and with which another 
of his fellows has upbraided me, was translated from the Spanish of 
Eodrifuez, though with the omission of the seventeenth, the twenty- 
fourth, the twenty-fifth, and the last chapter, which vdll be found in 
comparing of the books. 

He would have insinuated to the world that her late Highness died 
not a Roman Catholic ; he declares himself to be now satisfied to the 
contrary, in which he has given up the cause, for matter of fact was 
the principal debate betwixt us. In the meantime he would dispute 
the motives of her change ; how preposterously, let all men judge, 
when he seemed to deny the subject of the controversy, the change 
itself. And because I would not take up this ridiculous challevige, he 
tells the world I cannot argue ; but he may as well infer that a Catholic 
cannot ftist because he will not take up the cudgels against Mrs. James 
to confute the Protestant religion. 

I have but one word more to say concerning the Poem as such, and 

abstracting from the matters, either religious or civil, which are 

, handled in it. The First Part, consisting most in general characters 

iand narration. I have endeavoured to raise, and give it the inajestic 
turn of heroic poesy. The second being matter of dispute, and chiefly 

-*^concerning Church authority, I ,was obliged to make as plain and 
perspicuous as possibly I could, yet not wholly neglecting the 
numbers, though I had not frequent occasions for the magnificence of 
verse. The third, which has more of the nature of domestic con- 

H versation, is or ought to be more fi*ee and familiar than the twa 

. former. 

.' There are in it two Episodes or Fables, which are interwoven with 
the main design, so that they are properly parts of it, though they are 
also distinct stories of themselves. In both of these I have made use 
of the commonplaces of satire, whether true or false, which are urged 
by the members of the one Church against the other, at which I hope 
no reader of either party will be scandalised, because they are not of 
my invention, but as old, to my knowledge, as the times of Boccace 
and Chaucer on the one side, and as those of the Reformation on the 
othei. 



106 



THE HIITD AND THE PANTHER. 



A MILK-WHITE Hind, immortal and unclianged, 

Fed on the lawns and in tlie forest ranged ; 

Without unspotted, innocent within, 

She feared no danger, for she knew no sin. 

Yet had she oft been chased with horns and hounds 

And Scythian shafts ; and many winged wounds 

Aimed, at her heart ; was often forced to fly, 

And doomed to death, though fated not to die. 

Not so her young ; for their unequal line 
Was hero's make, half human, half divine. 
Their earthly mould obnoxious was to fate, 
The immorfcal part assumed immortal state. 
Of these a slaughtered army lay in blood, 
Extended o'er the Caledonian wood, 
Their native walk ; whose vocal blood arose 
And cried for pardon on their perjured foes. 
Their fate was fruitful, and the sanguine seed, 
Endued with souls, increased the sacred breed. ' 

So. captive Israel multiplied in chains, 
A numerous exile, and enjoyed her pains. 
With grief and gladness mixed, their mother viewed 
Her martyred offspring and their race renewed ; 
Their corps to perish, but their kind to last, 
So much the deathless plant the dying fruit surpassed. 

Panting and pensive now she ranged alone, 
And wandered in the kingdoms once her own. 
The common hunt, though from their rage restrained 
By sovereign power, her company disdained, 
G-rinned as they passed, and with a glaring eye 
Gave gloomy signs of secret enmity. 
'Tis true she bounded by and tripped so light, 
They had not time to take a steady sight ; 



THE HIND AND THE PANTHER. 107 

For truth has such a face and such a mien 
As to be loved needs only to be seen. 

The bloody Bear, an independent beast, 
TJnlicked to form, in groans her hate expressed. 
Among the timorous kind the quaking Hare 
Professed neutrality, but would not swear. 
Next her the buffoon Ape, as atheists use, 
Mimicked all sects and had his own to choose ; 
Still when the Lion looked, his knees. he bent. 
•And paid a,t church a courtier's compliment. 
The bristled baptist Boar, impure as he, 
But whitened with the foam of sanctity, 
With fat pollutions filled the sacred place 
And mountains levelled in his furious race ; 
So first rebellion founded was in grace. 
But, since the mighty ravage which he made 
In Grerman forests had his guilt betrayed, 
"With broken tusks and with a borrowed name, 
He shunned the vengeance and concealed the shame, 
So lurked in sects unseen. With greater guile 
False Reynard fed on consecrated spoil ; 
The graceless beast by Athanasius first 
Was chased from Mce, then by Socinus nursed, 
His impious race their blasphemy renewed. 
And Nature's King through Nature's optics viewed ; 
Reversed they viewed him lessened to their eye, 
Nor in an infant could a God descry. 
New swai'ming sects to this obliquely tend. 
Hence they began, and here they all will end. 

What weight of ancient witness can prevail, 
If private reason hold the public scale ? 
But, gracious God, how well dost Thou provide 
For erring judgments an unerring guide ! 
Thy throne is darkness in the abyss of light, 
A blaze of glory that forbids the sight. 
O teach me to believe Thee thus concealed. 
And search no farther than Thy self revealed ; 



108 dryden's poems. 

But her alone for my director take, 

Whom Thou hast promised never to forsake ! 

My thoughtless youth was winged with vain desires j 

My manhood, long misled by wandering fires, 

Followed false lights ; and when their glimpse W£a 

gone, 
My pride struck out new sparkles of her own. - 
Such was I, such by nature still I am ; 
Be Thine the glory and be mine the shame ! 
G-ood life be now my task ; my doubts are done : 
What more could fright my faith than Three in One f 
Can I believe Eternal God could lie 
Disguised in mortal mould and infancy. 
That the great Maker of the world could die ? 
And, after that, trust my imperfect sense 
Which calls in question His omnipotence ? 
Can I my reason to my faith compel. 
And shall my sight and touch and taste rebel? 
Superior faculties are set aside ; 
Shall their subservient organs be my guide ? 
Then let the moon usurp the rule of day, 
And winking tapers show the sun his way ; 
For what my senses can themselves perceive 
I need no revelation to believe. 
Can they, who say the Host should be descried 
By sense, define a body glorified, 

V Impassible, and penetrating parts? 

Let them declare by what mysterious arts 

He shot that body through the opposing might 

Of bolts and bars impervious to the light, 

And stood before His train confessed in open sight. 

For since thus wondrously He passed, 'tis plain 

One single place two bodies did contain, 

\ And sure the same omnipotence as well 
Can make one body in more places dwell. 
Let Reason then at her own quarry fly, 
But how can finite grasp infinity ? 



THE HIND AND THE PANTHER. . 109 

7 A ^ 

'Tis urged again, that faith, did first commence "^-^/, 
By miracles, which are appeals to sense, 
And thence concluded, that our sense must be 
The motive still of credibility. 
For latter ages must on former wait, 
And what began belief must propagate. 

But winnow well this thought, and you shall find 
'Tis light as chaff that flies before the wind. 
Were all those wonders wrought by power divine 
As means or ends of some more deep design ? 
Most sure as means, whose end was this alone, r 
To prove the Grodhead of the Eternal Son. ^^ --, 

God thus asserted : man is to believe 
Beyond what Sense and Reason can conceive, 
And for mysterious things of faith rely 
On the proponent Heaven's authorit3^ 
If then our faith we for our guide admit, 
Vain is the farther search of human wit ; 
As when the building gains a surer stay, 
We take the unuseful scaffolding away.[/ 
Reason by sense no more can understand ; 
The game is played into another hand. 
Why choose we then like bilanders to creep 
Along the coast, and land in view to keep, 
"When safely we may launch into the deep ? 
In the same vessel which our Saviour bore, 
Himself the pilot, let us leave the shore, 
And with a better guide a better world explore. 
Could He his Grodhead veil with flesh and blood 
And not veil these again to be our food ? 
His grace in both is equal in extent ; 
The first affords us life, the second nourishment. 
And if He can, why all this frantic pain 
To construe what his clearest words contain, 
And make a riddle what He made so plain ? 
To take up half on trust and half to try, 
Name it not faith, but bungling bigotry. 



110 dryden's poems. 

Both knave and fool the merchant we may call 

To pay great sums and to compound the small, 

For who would break with Heaven, and would not 

break for all 1 
Eest then, my soul, from endless anguish freed : 
Nor sciences thy guide, nor sense thy creed. 
Faith is the best insurer of thy bliss ; 
The bank above must fail before the venture miss. 
But Heaven and heaven-born faith are far from thee^ 
Thou first apostate to divinity. 
Unkennelled range in thy Polonian plains ; 
A fiercer foe, the insatiate Wolf remains. 

Too boastful Britain, please thyself no more 
That beasts of prey are banished from thy shore ; 
The Bear, the Boar, and every savage name, 
^ Wild in effect, though in appearance tame, 

Lay waste thy woods, destroy thy blissful bower, 

And, muzzled though they seem, the mutes devour. 

More haughty than the rest, the wolfish race 

Appear with belly gaunt and famished face ; 

Never was so deformed a beast of grace. 

His ragged tail betwixt his legs he wears, 

Close clapped for shame ; but his rough crest h.& 

rears. 
And pricks up his predestinating ears. 
His wild disordered walk, his haggard eyes, 
Did all the bestial citizens surprise ; 
Though feared and hated, yet he ruled a while, 
As captain or companion of the spoil. 
Full many a year his hateful head had been 
For tribute paid, nor since in .Cambria seen ; 
The last of all the litter 'scaped by chance, 
And from Geneva first infested France. 
Some authors thus his pedigree will trace, 
But others write him of an upstart race ; 
Because of Wickliff's brood no mark he brings 
But his innate antipathy to kings. 



THE HIND AND THE PANTt'ER. Ill 3 

These last deduce him from the Helvetian kind, 

Who near the Leman lake his consort lined ; 

That fiery Zuinglius first the affection bred, 

And meagre Calvin blessed the nuptial bed. 

In Israel some believe him whelped long since, 

When the proud Sanhedrim oppressed the Prince, 

Or, since he will be Jew, derive him higher, 

When Corah with his brethren did conspire 

From Moses' hand the sovereign sway to wrest, 

And Aaron of his ephod to oPevest ; 

Till opening earth made way for all to pass, 

And could not bear the burden of a class. 

The Fox and he came shuffled in the dark. 

If ever they were stowed in Noah's ark ; 

Perhaps not made ; for all their barking train 

The Dog (a common species) will contain ; 

And some wild curs, who from their masters ran. 

Abhorring the supremacy of man, 

In woods and caves the rebel-race began. 

happy pair, how well have you increased ! 
What ills in Church and State have you redressed t 
With teeth untried and rudiments of claws. 
Your first essay was on your native laws : 
Those having torn with ease and trampled down, 
Your fangs you fastened on the mitred crown, 
And freed from God and monarchy your town. 
What though your native kennel still be small, 
Bounded betwixt a puddle and a wall ; 
Yet your victorious colonies are sent 
Where the North Ocean girds the continent. 
Quickened with fire below, your monsters breed 
In fenny Holland and in fruitful Tweed ; 
And , like the first, the last affects to be 
Drawn to the dregs of a democracy. 
As, where in fields the fairy rounds are seen, 
A rank sour herbage rises on the green ; 
So, springing where these midnight elves advance,. 



^112 drydsn's poems. 

Rebellion prints tlie footsteps of tlie dance. 

Such arc their doctrines, such contempt they show 

To Hea /en above and to their Prince below, 

As none but traitors and blasphemers know. 

Grod like the tyrant of the skies is placed. 

And kings, like slaves, beneath the crowd debased. 

So fulsome is their food that flocks refuse 

To bite, and only dogs for physic use. 

As, where the lightning runs along the ground, 

No husbandry can heal the blasting wound ; 

Nor bladed grass nor bearded corn succeeds. 

But scales of scurf, and putrefaction breeds : 

Such wars, such waste, such fiery tracks of dearth 

Their zeal has left, and such a teemless earth. 

But as the poisons of the deadliest kind 

Are to their own unhappy coasts confined, 

As only Indian shades of sight deprive. 

And magic plants will but in Colchos thrive, 

"So Presbytery and pestilential zeal 

€an only flourish in a common-weal. 

From Celtic woods is chased the wolfish crew ; 
But ah ! some pity e'en to brutes is due : 
Their native walks, methinks, they might enjoy, 
€urbed of their native malice to destroy. 
Of all the tyrannies on human kind 
The worst is that which persecutes the mind 
Let us but weigh at what offence we strike ; 
'Tis but because we cannot think alike. 
In punishing of this, we overthrow 
The laws of nations and of nature too. 
Beasts are the subjects of tyrannic sway, 
Where still the stronger on the weaker prey ; 
Man only of a softer mould is made 
Not for his fellows' ruin, but their aid : 
Created kind, beneficent and free, 
The noble image of the Deity. 

One portion of informing fire was given 



THE HIND AND THE PANTHEil. 113 ', 

To brutes, tlie inferior family of Heaven : H 

The smitli Divine, as with a careless beat, 'i 

Struck out the mute creation at a heat ; ^ 

But when arrived at last to human race, r| 

The Godhead took a deep considering space, i ^j 

And. to distinguish man from all the rest, i 

Unlocked the sacred treasures of his breast, ' j 
And mercy mixed with reason did impart. 

One to his head, the other to his heart • I 

_^E.eason to rule, but mercy to forgive, ! 

The first is law, the last prerogative. ■ 

And like his mind his outward form appeared, '■ 

When issuing naked to the wondering herd ) 
He charmed their eyes, and for they loved they f 

feared. ? 

Not armed with horns of arbitrary might, ] 

Or claws to seize their furry spoils in fight, i; 
Or with increase of feet to o'ertake them in their i 

flight : i 

Of easy shape, and pliant every way, 1 

Confessing still the softness of his clay, j 
And kind as kings upon their coronation day ; 

With open hands, and with extended space ;^ 

Of arms to satisfy a large embrace. ,'| 

Thus kneaded up with milk, the new-made man ,? 

His kingdom o'er his kindred world began ; a 

Till knowledge misapplied, misunderstood, 'I 

And pride of empire soured his balmy blood. | 

Then, first rebelling, his own stamp he coins ; "^i 

The murderer Cain was latent in his loins ; I 

And blood began its first and loudest cry 'i 

For difEering worship of the Deity. | 

Thus persecution rose, and farther space !^ 

Produced the mighty hunter of his race. I 

Not so the blessed Pan his flock increased, p 

Content to fold them from the famished beast : '• 
Mild were his laws ; the Sheep and harmless Hind '). 



DEYDEN S POEMS. 

Were never of the persecuting kind. 
Such pity now the pious pastor shows, 
Such mercy from the British Lion flows 
That both provide protection for their foes, 

Oh, happy regions, Italy and Spain, 
Which never did those monsters entertain 1 
The Wolf, the Bear, the Boar, can there advance 
No native claim of just inheritance ; 
And self-preserving laws, severe in show, 
May guard their fences from the invading foe. 
Where birth has placed them, let them safely share 
The common benefit of vital air ; 
Themselves unharmf ul, let them live unharmed, 
Their jaws disabled and their claws disarmed ; 
Here only in nocturnal howlings bold. 
They dared not seize the Hind nor leap the fold. 
More powerful, and as vigilant as they, 
The Lion awfully 'forbids the prey. 
Their rage repressed, though pinched with famine sore, 
They stand aloof, and tremble at his roar ; 
Much is their hunger, but their fear is more. 

These are the chief ; to number o'er the rest 
And stand, like Adam, naming every beast, 
Were weary work ; nor will the Muse describe 
A slimy-born and sun-begotten tribe. 
Who, far from steeples and their sacred sound, 
In fields their sullen conventicles found. 
These gross, half -animated lumps I leave, 
Nor can I think what thoughts they can conceive. 
But if they think at all,. 'tis sure no higher 
Than matter put in motion may aspire ; 
Souls that can scarce ferment their mass of clay, 
So drossy, so divisible are they 
As would but serve pure bodies for allay. 
Such souls as shards produce, such beetle things 
As only buzz to heaven with evening wings, 
Strike in the dark, ofEending but by chance. 



THE HIND AMD i'HE PANTHER. 115 

Such are tiie blindfold blows of ignorance. 
They know not beings, and but hate a name ; 
To them the Hind and Panther are the same. 

The Panther, sure the noblest next the Hind, 
And fairest creature of the spotted kind ; 
Oh, could her inborn stains be washed away 
She were too good to be a beast of prey ! 
How can I praise or blame, and not offend, 
Or how divide the frailly from the friend ? 
Her faults and virtues lie so mixed, that she 
Nor wholly stands condemned nor wholly free. 
Then, like her injured Lion, let me speak ; 
He cannot bend her and he would not break. 
Unkind already, and estranged in part. 
The Wolf begins to share her wandering heart. 
Though unpolluted yet with actual ill, 
She half commits who sins but in her will. 
If, as our dreaming Platonists report, 
There could be spirits of a middle sort, 
Too black for Heaven and yet too white for hell, 
Who just dropped half-way down, nor lower fell ; 
• So poised, so gently she descends from high. 
It seems a soft dismission from the sky. 
Her house not ancient, whatsoe'er pretence 
Her clergy heralds make in her defence ; 
A second century not half-way run, 
Since the new honours of her blood begun. 
A Lion, old, obscene, and furious made 
By lust, compressed her mother in a shade ; 
Then by a left-hand marriage weds the dame, 
Covering adultery with a specious name ; 
So schism begot ; and sacrilege and she, 
A well matched pair, got graceless heresy. 
God's and kings' rebels have the same good cause 
To trample down divine and human laws ; 
Both would be called reformers* and their hate, 
Alike destructive both to Church and State. 



116 deyden's poems. 

The fruit proclaims the plant ; a lawless Prince 

By luxury reformed incontinence, 

By ruins charity, by riot abstinence. 

Confessions, fasts, and penance set aside ; 

Oh, with what ease we follow such a guide, 

Where souls are starved and senses gratified ! 

Where marriage pleasures midnight prayer supply, 

And matin bells (a melancholy cry) 

Are tuned to merrier notes, Increase and Multiply, 

Religion shows a rosy-coloured face, 

Not hattered out with drudging works of grace : 

A down-hill reformation rolls apace. 

What flesh and blood would crowd the narrow gate, 

Or, till they waste their pampered paunches, wait ? 

All would be happy at the cheapest rate. 

Though our lean faith these rigid laws has given, 
The full-fed Mussulman goes fat to heaven ; 
For his Arabian prophet with delights 
Of sense allured his Eastern proselytes. 
The jolly Luther, reading him, began 
To interpret Scriptures by his Alcoran ; 
To grub the thorns beneath our tender feet 
And make the paths of Paradise more sweet, 
Bethought him of a wife, ere half-way gone. 
For 'twas uneasy travailing alone ; 
And in this masquerade of mirth and love 
Mistook the bliss of Heaven for Bacchanals above. 
Sure he presumed of praise, who came to stock 
The ethereal pastures with so fair a flock, 
Burnished and battening on their food, to show 
The diligence of careful herds below. 

Our Panther, though like these she changed her 
head. 
Yet, as the mistress of a monarch's bed, 
Her front erect with majesty she bore. 
The crosier wielded and the mitre wore. 
Her upper part of decent discipline 



THE HIND AND THE PANTHER. 117 

Showed affectation of an ancient line ; 
And Fatliers, Councils, Church and Church's head, 
Were on her reverend phylacteries read. 
But what disgraced and disavowed the rest 
Was Calvin's brand, that stigmatised the beast. 
Thus, like a creature of a double kind, 
In her own labyrinth she lives confined ; 
To foreign lands no sound of her is come, 
Humbly content to be despised at home. 
Such is her faith, where good cannot be had, 
At last she leaves the refuse of the bad. 
Nice in her choice of ill, though not of best. 
And least deformed, because reformed the least. 
In doubtful points betwixt her differing friends, 
Where one for substance, one for sign contends. 
Their contradicting terms she strives to join ; 
Sign shall be substance, substance shall be sign. 
A real presence all her sons allow, 
And yet 'tis fiat idolatry to bow, 
Because the Godhead's there they know not how. 
Her novices are taught that bread and wine 
Are but the visible and outward sign, 
Received by those who in communion join. 
But the inward grace or the thing signified. 
His blood and body who to save us died. 
The faithful this thing signified receive : 
What is't those faithful then partake or leave ? 
For what is signified and understood 
Is by her own confession flesh and blood. 
Then by the same acknowledgment we know 
They take the sign and take the substance too. 
The literal sense is hard to flesh and blood. 
But nonsense never can be understood. 

Her wild belief on every wave is tost ; 
But sure no Church can better morals boast. 
True to her King her principles are found ; 
Oh that her practice were but half so sound ! 



118 dryden's poems. 

steadfast in various turns of state slie stood, 
And sealed lier vowed affection with Iter blood : 
Kor will I meanly tax lier constancy, 
That interest or obligement made the tie 
(Bound to the fate of murdered monarchy). 
Before the sounding axe so falls the vine, 
Whose tender branches round the poplar twine. 
She chose her ruin and resigned her life, 
In death undaunted as an Indian wife ; 
A rare example I but some souls we see 
Grow hard and stiffen with adversity : 
Yet these by Fortune's favours are undone ; 
Eesolved into a baser form they run, 
And bore the wind, but cannot bear the sun. 
Let this be Nature's frailty or her fate. 
Or Isgrim's counsel, her new chosen mate ; 
Still she's the fairest of the fallen crew ; 
No mother more indulgent but the true. 

Fierce to her foes, yet fears her force to try, 
Because she wants innate auctority ; 
For how can she constrain them to obey '(/ 
Who has herself cast off the lawful sway ? 
Rebellion equals all, and those who toil 
In common theft will share the common spoil. 
Let her produce the title and the right V/^ 
Against her old superiors first to fight ; 
If she reform by text, even that's as plain 
For her own rebels to reform again. 
As long as words a different sense will bear 
And each may be his own interpreter, 
Our airy faith will no foundation find : -» / 
The word's a weathercock for every wind : 
The Bear, the Fox, the Wolf by turns prevail ; 
The most in power supplies the present gale. 
The wretched Panther cries aloud for aid 
To Church and Councils, whom she first betrayed ; 
No help from Fathers or tradition's train : 






THE HIND AND THE ir'jJ.^N THEE. 119 

Those ancient guides she taught us to disdain, 
And by that Scripture which she once abused 
To Reformation stands herself accused. 
What bills for breach of laws can she prefer, 
Expounding which she owns herself may err 1 
And after all her winding ways are tried, 
If doubts arise, she slips herself aside 
And leaves the private conscience for the guide. 
If then that conscience set the offender free 
^It bars her claim to Church auctority. 
How can she censure, or what crime pretend, 
But Scripture may ba construed to defend ? 
Even those whom for rebellion she transmits 
To civil power, her doctrine first acquits ; 
Because no disobedience can ensue, 
Adhere no submission to a judge is due ; 
Each judging for himself, by her consent. 
Whom thus absolved she sends to punishment. 
Suppose the magistrate revenge her cause. 
'Tis only for transgressing human laws. 
How answering to its end a Church is made, 
Whose power is but to counsel and persuade ? 
Oh. solid rock, on which secure she stands ! 
Eternal house, not built with mortal hands ! 
Oh, sure defence against the infernal gate, 
A patent during pleasure of the State ! 

Thus is the Panther neither loved nor feared, 
A mere mock queen of a divided herd ; 
Whom soon by lawful power she might control, 
Herself a part submitted to the whole. 
Then, as the moon who first receives the light 
By which she makes our nether regions bright, 
So might she shine, reflecting from afar 
The rays she borrowed from a better star ; 
Big with the beams which from her mother flow, 
And reigning o'er the rising tides below : 
Now mixing with a savage crowd she goes. 



120 DEYDElSr'S POEMS. 

And meanly flatters her inveterate foes, 
Ruled while she rules, and losing every hour 
Her wretched remnants of precarious power. 

One evening, while the cooler shade she sought, 
Revolving many a melancholy thought, 
Alone she walked, and looked around in vain 
With rueful visage for her vanished train : 
None of her sylvan subjects made their court ; 
Levees and couchees passed without resort.^ 
So hardly can usurpers manage well ^/^ 
Those whom they first instructed to rebel. 
More liberty begets desire of more ; 
The hunger still increases with the store. 
"Without respect they brushed along the wood, 
Each in his clan, and filled with loathsome food 
Asked no permission to the neighbouring flood. 
The Panther, full of inward discontent, 
Since they would go, before them wisely went ; 
Supplying want of power by drinking first. 
As if she gave them leave to quench their thirst. 
Among the rest, the Hind with fearful face 
Beheld from far the common watering-place. 
Nor durst approach ; till with an awful roar 
The Sovereign Lion bade her fear no more. 
Encouraged thus, she brought her younglings nigh, 
Watching the motions of her patron's eye, 
And drank a sober draught ; the rest amazed 
Stood mutely still and on the stranger gazed ; 
Surveyed her part by part, and sought to find 
The ten-horned monster in the harmless Hind, 
Such as the Wolf and Panther had designed. 
They thought at first they dreamed : for 'twas offence 
With them to question certitude of sense, 
Their guide in faith : but nearer when they drew, 
And had the faultless object full in view, 
Lord, how they all admired her heavenly hue ! 
Some who before her fellowship disdained 



THE HIND AND THE PANTHER. 121 

Scarce, and but scarce, from inborn rage restrained, 
Now frisked about her and old kindred feigned. 
Whether for love or interest, every sect 
Of all the savage nation showed respect. 
The viceroy Panther could not awe the herd ; 
The more the company, the less fchey feared. 
The surly Wolf with secret envy burst. 
Yet could not howl, the Hind had seen him first ; 
But what he durst not speak, the Panther durst. 
• For when the herd sufficed did late repair 
To ferny heaths and to their forest lair. 
She made a mannerly excuse to stay, 
Proffering the Hind to wait her half the way ; 
That, since the sky was clear, an hour of talk 
Might help her to beguile the tedious walk. 
With much goodwill the motion was embraced, 
To chat a while on their adventures passed ; 
Nor had the grateful Hind so soon forgot 
Her friend and fellow-sufferer in the Plot. 
Yet wondering how of late she grew estranged, 
Her forehead cloudy and her countenance changed, 
She thought this hour the occasion would present 
To learn her secret cause of discontent, 
Which well she hoped might be with ease redr<^ssed, 
Considering her a well-bred civil beast. 
And more a gentlewoman than the rest. 
After some common talk what rumours ran. 
The lady of the spotted muff began. 



THE SECOND PART. 

** Dame," said the Panther, " times are mended well 
Since late among the Philistines you fell. 
The toils were pitched, a spacious tract of ground 
With expert huntsmen was encompassed round ; 
The enclosure narrowed : the sagacious power 



122 DEYDENS POEMS. 



Of hounds and death drew nearer every hour. i 

'Tis true, the younger Lion, scaped the snare, ^ 

But all your priestly calves lay struggling- there, I 

As sacrifices on their altars laid ; - 

' While you, their careful mother, wisely fled, ■ 

Not trusting Destiny to save your head. .; 

For whate'er promises you have applied I 

To your unfailing Church, the surer side J 

Is four fair legs in danger to provide ; • 

And whate'er tales of Peter's chair you tell, ^ 

Yet, saving reverence of the miracle, i 

The better luck was yours to 'scape so well." '^ 

" As I remember," said the sober Hind, j 

" Those toils were for your own dear self designed, ' 
As well as me ; and with the self -same throw, 

To catch the quarry and the vermin too ] 

(Forgive the slanderous tongues that called you so), ; 

Howe'er you take it now, the common cry ,| 

Then ran you down for your rank loyalty. i 

Besides, in Popery they thought you nurst, | 

As evil tongues will ever speak the worst, •; 

Because some forms and ceremonies some j 

You kept, and stood in the main question dumb. ..^ 
Dumb you were born indeed ; but thinking long, 

The Test, it seems, at last has loosed your tongue. | 

\f' And to explain what your forefathers meant '\ 

By real presence in the Sacrament, * 

After long fencing pushed against a wall, " j 

Your salvo comes, that he's not there at all : ". 
There changed your faith, and what may change may j 

fall. 1 

Who can believe what varies every day, : 

Nor ever was nor will be at a stay ? " i 

" Tortures may force the tongue untruths to tell, J 

And I ne'er owned myself infallible," ■, 
Eeplied the Pantlier. " Grant such presence were, 

Yet in your sense I never owned it there. '< 



THE HIND AND THE PANTHEE,. 123 

A real virtue we by faith, receive, 
And that we in the Sacrament believe." 

" Then," said the Hind, " as you the matter state, 
Not only Jesuits can equivocate ; 
For real, as you now the word expound, 
From solid substance dwindles to a sound. 
Methinks an ^sop's fable you repeat ; 
You know who took the shadow for the meat. 
Your Church's substance thus you change at will, 
.4nd yet retain your former figure still. 
I freely grant you spoke to save your life, 
For then you lay beneath the butcher's knife. 
Long time you fought, redoubled battery bore, 
But, after all, against yourself you swore ; 
Your former self, for every hour you form 
Is chopped and changed, like winds before a storm. 
Thus fear and interest will prevail with some ; 
For all have not the gift of martyrdom." 

The Panther grinned at this, and thus replied': 
" That men may err was never yet denied. 
But, if that common principle be true, 
The cannon, dame, is levelled full at you. 
But, shunning long disputes, I fain would see 
That wondrous wight. Infallibility. 
Is he from Heaven, this mighty champion, come ? 
Or lodged below in subterranean Rome 1 
First, seat him somewhere, and derive his race, 
Or el^ conclude that nothing has no place." 

" Suppose (though I disown it), " said the Hind, 
" The certain mansion were not yet assigned : 
The doubtful residence no proof can bring 
Against the plain existence of the thing. 
Because philosophers may disagree 
If sight by emission or reception be, 
Shall it be thence inferred I do not see ? 
But you require an answer positive. 
Which yet, when I demand, you dare not give ; 



124 dryden's poems. i 

For fallacies in tmiversals live. ■ 
I tlien affirm that this unfailing guide 
In Pope and G-eneral Councils must reside : 

Both lawful, both combined ; what one decreai t 

By numerous votes, the other ratifies ; ] 

On this undoubted sense the Church relies. i 

'Tis true some doctors in a scantier space, J 

I mean, in each apart, contract the place. '■ 
Some, who to greater length extend the line, 
The Church's after acceptation join. 

This last circumference appears too wide ; ^^ 

The Church diffused is by the Council tied ; :i 

As members by their representatives 1 

Obliged to laws which Prince and Senate gives, i 

C Thus some contract and some enlarge the space : ] 

j In Pope and Council who denies the place, \ 

^ Assisted from above with G-od's unfailing grace ? ; 

Those canons all the needful points contain ; "; 

Their sense so obvious and their words so plain, a 

That no disputes about the doubtful text j 

Have hitherto the labouring world perplexed. ; 

If any should in after times appear, •; 
New Councils must be called, to make the meaning ; 

clear ; : 

Because in them the power supreme resides, ; 

And all the promises are to the guides. \ 

This may be taught with sound and safe defence ; j 

But mark how sandy is your own pretence, ': 

Who, setting Councils, Pope, and Church aside, j 

Are every man his own presuming guide. ' 
The Sacred Books, you say, are full and plain, * ] 

And every needful point of truth contain ; i 

All who can read interpreters may be. \ 

Thus, though your several Churches disagree, > 

Yet every saint has to himself alone ' 

The secret of this philosophic stone. ^ 
These principles your jarring sects unite, 



THE HIND AND THE PANTHER. 125 

When differing doctors and disciples fight ; 
Though Luther, Zuinglius, Calvin, holj chiefs, 
Have made a battle royal of beliefs, 
Or, like wild horses, several ways have whirled 
The tortured text about the Christian world, 
Each Jehu lashing on with furious force, 
That Turk or Jew -could not have used it worse. 
No matter what dissension leaders make, 
Where every private man may save a stake : 
, Ruled by the Scripture and his own advice, 
^ Each has a blind by-path to Paradise, 
Where driving in a circle slow or fast 
Opposing sects are sure to meet at last. 
A wondrous charity you have in store 
For all reformed .to pass the narrow door, 
So much, that Mahomet had scarcely more : 
For he, kind prophet, was for damning none, 
But Christ and Moses were to save their own ; 
Himself was to secure his chosen race. 
Though reason good for Turks to take the place. 
And he allowed to be the better man 
In virtue of his holier Alcoran." 

" True," said the Panther, " I shall ne'er deny 
My brethren may be saved as well as I : 
Though Huguenots contemn our ordination, 
Succession, ministerial vocation, 
And Luther, more mistaking what he read. 
Mis joins the sacred body with the bread, 
Yet, lady, still remember I maintain 
The Word in needful points is only plain." 

"Needless or needful I not now contend. 
For still you have a loophole for a friend," 
Ee joined the matron ; " but the rule you lay 
Has led whole flocks, and leads them still astray 
In weighty points, and full damnation's way. 
For did not Arius first, Socinus now 
The Son's eternal Godhead disavow 2 



126 dryden's poems. 

And did not these by gospel texts alone 

Condemn our doctrine and maintain their own ? 

Have not all heretics the same pretence 

To plead the Scriptures in their own defence ? 

How did the Nicene Council then decide 

That strong debate ? was it by Scriptures tried ? 

No, sure to those the rebel would not yield ; 

Squadrons of texts he marshalled in the field : 

That was but civil war, an equal set, 

Where piles with piles, and eagles eagles met. 

With texts point-blank and plain he faced the foe : 

And did not Satan tempt our Saviour so 1 

The good old bishops took a simpler way ; 

Each asked but what he heard his father say, 

Or how he was instructed in his youth, 

And by tradition's force upheld the truth." 

The Panther smiled at this, and " When," said she, 
" Were those first Councils disallowed by me ? 
Or where did I at sure tradition strike, 
Provided, still it were apostolic ? " 

" Friend," said the Hind, " you quit your former 
ground. 
Where all your faith you did on Scripture found : 
Now, 'tis tradition joined with Holy Writ ; 
But thus your memory betrays your wit." 

" No," said the Panther, " for in that I view 
When your tradition's forged, and when 'tis true. 
I set them by the rule, and as they square 
Or deviate from undoubted doctrine there, 
This oral fiction, that old faith declare." 

(^Hind.') " The Council steered, it seems, a diflEerent 
course ; 
They tried the Scripture by tradition's force ; I ' 
But you tradition by the Scripture try ; 
Pursued by sects, from this to that you fly. 
Nor dare on one foundation to rely. 
The Word is then deposed, and in this view 



THE HIND AND THE PANTHER. 127 

You rule the Scripture, not the Scripture you." 
Thus said the dame, and, smiling, thus pursued : 
" I see tradition then is disallowed, 
When not evinced by Scripture to be true, 
And Scripture as interpreted by you. 
But here you tread upon unfaithful ground, 
Unless you could infallibly expound ; 
Which you reject as odious Popery, 
And throw that doctrine back with scorn on me. 
Suppose we on things traditive divide. 
And both appeal to Scripture to decide ; 
By various texts we both uphold our claim, 
Nay, often ground our titles on the same : 
After long labour lost and time's expense, 
Both grant the words and quarrel for the sense. 
Thus all disputes for ever must depend, 
For no dumb rule can controversies end. 
Thus, when you said tradition must be tried 
By Sacred Writ, whose sense yourselves decide, 
You said no more but that yourselves must be 
The judges of the Scripture sense, not we. 
Against our Church-tradition you declare, 
And yet your clerks would sit in Moses' chair ; 
At least 'tis proved against your argument, 
The rule is far from plain, where all dissent." 

" If not by Scriptures, how can we be sure," 
Replied the Panther, " what tradition's pure ? 
For you may palm upon us new for old ; 
All, as they say, that glitters is not gold." 

" How but by following her," replied the dame, ( , 
" To whom derived from sire to son they came ; 
Where every age does on another move, 
And trusts no farther than the next above ; 
Where all the rounds like Jacob's ladder rise. 
The lowest hid in earth, the topmost in the skies 1 " 

Sternly the savage did her answer mark. 
Her glowing eyeballs glittering in the dark, 



128 DETDEN'S POEMS. 

And said but this : — " Since lucre was your trade, 
Succeeding times such dreadful gaps have made, 
'Tis dangerous climbing : to your sons and you 
I leave the ladder, and its omen too." 

{Hind^ " The Panther's breath was ever famed for 
sweet, 
But from the Wolf such wishes oft I meet ; 
You learned this language f rem the blatant beast, 
Or rather did not speak, but were possessed. 
As for your answer, 'tis but barely urged : 
You must evince tradition to be forged. 
Produce plain proofs, unblemished authors use, 
As ancient as those ages they accuse ; 
Till when, 'tis not sufficient to defame ; 
An old possession stands till elder quits the claim. 
Then for our interest, which is named alone 
To load with envy, we retort your own ; 
For, when traditions in your faces fly. 
Resolving not to yield, you must decry. 
As when the cause goes hard, tho guilty man 
Excepts, and thins his jury all he can ; 
So when you stand of other aid bereft, 
You to the twelve Apostles would be left. 
Your friend the Wolf did with more craft provide 
To set those toys, traditions, quite aside : 
And Fathers too, unless when, reason spent, 
He cites them, but sometimes for ornament, 
But, madam Panther, you, though more sii;icere, 
Are not so wise as your adulterer ; 
The private spirit is a better blind 
Than all the dodging tricks your authors find. 
For they who left the Scripture to the crowd, 
Each for his own peculiar judge allowed ; 
The way to please them was to make them proud. 
Thus with full sails they ran upon the shelf ; 
Who could suspect a cozenage from himself? 
On his own reason safer 'tis to stand 



THE HIND AND THE PANTHER. 1^ 

Than be deceived and damned at second hand. 

But you wlio Fathers and traditions take, i 

And garble some, and some you quite forsake, 

Pretending Church auctority to fix, 

And yet some grains of private spirit mix, 

Are like a mule made up of differing seed, 

And that's the reason why you never breed,. 

At least, not propagate your kind abroad, 

For home-dissenters are by statutes awed^ 

^d yet they grow upon you every day, 

While you, to speak the best, are at a stay. 

For sects that are extremes abhor a middle way. 

Like tricks of state to stop a raging flood. 

Or mollify a mad-brained senate's mood, 

Of all expedients never one was good. 

Well may they argue (nor can you deny), 

If we must fix on Church-auctority, 

Best on the best, the fountain, not the flood ; 

That mu-st be better still, if this be good. * 

Shall she command who has herself rebelled t 

Is Antichrist by Antichrist expelled ? 

Did we a lawful tyranny displace. 

To set aloft a bastard of the race ? 

Why all these wars to win the book, if we- 

Must not interpret for ourselves, but she t' 

Either be wholly slaves or wholly free. 

For purging fires traditions must not fight ;- 

But they must prove episcopacy's right. 

Thus, those led horses are from service freed ; 

You never mount them but in time of need. 

Like mfercenaries, hired for home defence, 

They will not serve against their native PrfncsL 

Against domestic foes of hierarchy 

These are drawn forth, to make fanatics fly ; 

But, when they see their countrymen at hand, 

Marching against them under Church command^ 

Straight they forsake their colours and disbandj^ 



.^30 dryixen's poems. 

Th-us she ; nor could the Panther well enlarge 
With weak defence against so strong a charge ; 
But said, " For what did Christ His word provide, 
f f still His Church must want a living guide ? 
And if all saving doctrines are not there, 
'""Or sacred penmen could not make them clear, 
;From after ages we should hope in vain 
Wov truths, which men inspired could not explain." 

" Before the word was written," said the Hind, 
■** Our Saviour preached His faith to human kind : 
JiFrom His Apostles the first age received 
/lEternal truth, and what they taught believed. 
\ V "Thus by tradition faith was planted first ; 

^ Succeeding flocks succeeding pastors nursed. 
^This was the way our wise Redeemer chose, 
Who sure could all things for the best dispose, 
To fence His fold from their encroaching foes. 
He could have writ Himself, but well foresaw 
tThe event would be like that of Moses' law ; 
Some difference would arise, some doubts remain, 

V .Iiike those which yet the jarring Jews maintain. 
INo written laws can be so plain, so pure, 
"But wit may gloss and malice may obscure ; 
'.'Not those indited by his first command, 

. Jl prophet graved the text, an angel held his hand. 
'Thus faith was ere the written Word appeared, 

^ .And men believed, not what they read, but heard. 
But since the Apostles could not be confined 
"Toithese or those, but severally designed 
Their large commission round the world to blow. 
To spread their faith, they spread their labours too. 
Yet still their absent flock their pains did share ; 
They hearkened still, for love produces care. 
And as mistakes arose or discords fell, 
' Or bold seducers taught them to rebel, 
As charity grew cold or faction hot, 
»Or long neglect their lessons had forgot, 



THE HIND AND THE l^ANTHER. 131 

\/ For all their wants they wisely did provide, 
v And preaching by Epistles was supplied : 
So, great physicians cannot all attend. 
But some they visit and to some they send. 
Yet all those letters were not writ to all. 
Nor first intended, but occasional 
Their absent sermons ; nor, if they contain 
All needful doctrines, are those doctrines plain. 

/ Clearness by frequent preaching must be wrought ; 
JThey writ but seldom, but they daily taught ; 
And what one saint has said of holy Paul, 
He darkly writ, is true applied to all. 
For this obscurity could Heaven provide 
More prudently than by a living guide. 
As doubts arose, the difference to decide ? 
A guide was therefore needful, therefore made ; 
And, if appointed, sure to be obeyed. 
Thus, with due reverence to the Apostles' writ, 
By which my sons are taught, to which submit, 
I think those truths their sacred works contain 

' The Church alone can certainly explain ; 
That following ages, leaning on the past. 
May rest upon the primitive at last. 
Nor would I thence the Word no rule infer, 
But none without the Church-interpreter ; 
Because, as I have urged before, 'tis mute, 
And is itself the subject of dispute. 
But what the Apostles their successors taught, 
They to the next, from them to us is brought, 
The undoubted sense which is in Scripture sought. 
From hence the Church is armed, when errors rise 
To stop their entrance and prevent surprise. 
And, safe entrenched within, her foes without; defies. 
Bv these all-festering sores her councils heal, _ 
Which time or has disclosed or shall reveal ; 
For discord cannot end without a last appeal. 
Nor can a council national decide. 



132 dryden's poems. 

But with subordination to her guide 
(I wish the cause were on that issue tried) ; 
Much lees the Scripture ; for suppose debate 
Betwixt pretenders to a fair estate, 
Bequeathed by some legator's last intent 
(Such is our dying Saviour's Testament) : 
The will is proved, is opened, and is read ; 
The doubtful heirs their differing titles plead ; 
All vouch the words their interest to maintain, 
And each pretends by those his cause is plain. 
Shall then the testament award the right ? 
No, that's the Hungary for which they fight, 
The field of battle, subject of debate. 
The thing contended for, the fair estate. 
The sense is intricate, 'tis only clear 
What vowels and what consonants are there. 
Therefore 'tis plain, its meaning must be tried 
Before some judge appointed to decide." 

"Suppose," the fair apostate said, "I grant, 
The faithful flock some living guide should want, 
Your arguments an endless chase pursue : 
\l Produce this vaunted leader to our view, 
This mighty Moses of the chosen crew." 

The dame, who saw her fainting foe retired, 
With force renewed, to victory aspired ; 
And, looking upward to her kindred sky, 
As once our Saviour owned His Deity, 
Pronounced His words — She whom y^ seeli am I. 
ISTor less amazed this voice the Panther heard 
Than were those Jews to hear a Grod declared. 
Then thus the matron modestly renewed : 
" Let all your prophets and their sects be viewed. 
And see to which of them yourselves think fit 
; The conduct of your conscience to submit ; 
^"^ Each proselyte would vote his doctor best, 
With absolute exclusion to the rest : 
Thus would your Polish Diet disagree. 



THE HIND AND THE PANTHER. 133 

And end, as it began, in anarchy ; 
Yourself the fairest for election stand, 
Because you seem crown-general of the land : 
But soon against your superstitious lawn 
Some Presbyterian sabre would be drawn ; 
In your established laws of sovereignty 
The rest some fundamental flaw would see, 
And call rebellion gospel-liberty, 
To Church-decrees your articles require 
ilBubmission modified, if not entire. 
Homage denied, to censures you proceed : 
But when Curtana will not do the deed, 
You lay that pointless clergy- weapon by. 
And to the laws, your sword of justice, fly. 
Now this your sects the more unkindly take 
•(Those prying varlets hit the blots you make), 
/Because some ancient friends of yours declare 
^^^ Your only rule of faith the Scriptures are, 
Interpreted by men of judgment sound, 
Which every sect will for themselves expound. 
Nor think less reverence to their doctors due 
For sound interpretation, than to you. 
If then by able heads are understood 
Your brother prophets, who reformed abroad ; 
"Those able heads expound a wiser way, 
That th eir own sheep their shepherd should obey. 
But if you mean yourselves are only sound. 
That doctrine turns the Reformation round. 
And all the rest are false reformers found ; 
Because in sundry points you stand alone, 
Not in communion joined with any one. 
And therefore must be all the Church, or none. 
Then, till you have agreed whose judge is best, 
Against this forced submission they protest ; 
• While sound and sound a different sense explains. 
Both play at hard-head till they break their brains ; 
And from their chairs each other's force defy. 



134 deyden's poems. 

While unregarded thunders vainly fly. 
I pass the rest, because your Church alone 
Of all usurpers best could fill the throne. 
But neither you nor any sect beside 
For this high office can be qualified 
With necessary gifts required in such a guide. 
For that which must direct the whole must be 
Bound in one bond of faith and unity ; 
But all 5'our several Churches disagree. 
The consubstantiating Church and priest 
Refuse communion to the Calvlnist ; 
The French reformed from preaching you restrain, 
Because you judge their ordination vain ; 
And so they judge of yours, but donors must ordain. 
In short, in doctrine or in discipline 
"Not one reformed can with another join : 
But all from each, as from damnation, fly : 
No union they pretend, but in Non-Popery. 
Nor, should their members in a synod meet, 
Could any Church presume to mount the seat 
Above the rest, their discords to decide ; 
None would obey, but each would be the guide ; 
And face to face dissensions would increase, 
For only distance now preserves the peace. 
All in their turns accusers and accused, 
Babel was never half so much confused. 
What one can plead the rest can plead as well, 
For amongst equals lies no last appeal. 
And all confess themselves are fallible. 
Now, since you grant some necessary guide, 
All who can err "are justly laid aside, 
Because a trust so sacred to confer 
\| Shows want of such a sure interpreter, 
And how can he be needful who can err ? 
Then, granting that unerring guide we want, 
That such there is you stand obliged to grant ; 
Our Saviour else were wanting to supply 



THE HIND AND THE PANTHER. 135" 

Our needs and obviate tliat necessity. 

It then remains, that Church can only be 

The guide which owns unfailing certainty ; 

Or else you slip your hold and change your side^ 

Relapsing from a necessary guide. 

But this annexed condition of the crown, 

Immunity from errors, you disown ; 

Here then you shrink, and lay your weak pretension® 

down. 
I^r petty royalties you raise debate, 
But this unfailing universal State 
You shun, nor dare succeed to such a glorious weiglit ; 
And for that cause those promises detest 
With which our Saviour did His Church invest ; 
But strive to evade, and fear to find them true^ 
As conscious they were never meant to you ; 
All which the Mother-Church asserts her own^ 
And with unrivalled claim ascends the throne^ 
So, when of old the Almighty Father sate 
In council, to redeem our ruined state, 
Millions of millions, at a distance round, 
Silent the sacred consistory crowned, 
To hear what mercy mixed with ju&ace could pro- - 

pound ; 
All prompt with eager pity to fulfil 
The full extent of their Creator's will. 
But when the stern conditions were declared, 
A mournful whisper through the host was heard, 
And the whole hierarchy with heads hung down 
Submissively declined the ponderous proffered crowns 
Then, not till then, the Eternal Son from high 
Rose in the strength of all the Deity ; 
Stood forth to accept the terms, and underwent 
A weight which all the frame of heaven had bent. 
Nor he himself could bear, but as omnipotent. 
Now, to remove the least remaining doubt, 
That even the blear-eyed sects may find her out-. 



4 



136 dryden's poems. 

Behold wliat lieavenly rays adorn her brows, 
What from his wardrobe her beloved allows 
To deck the wedding-day of his unspotted spouse. 
Behold what marks of majesty she brings, 
"Bicher than ancient heirs of Eastern Kings ! 
"Her right hand holds the sceptre and the keys, 
To show whom she commands, and who obeys : 
With these to bind or set the sinner free. 
With that to assert spiritual royalty. 

One in herself, not rent by schism, but sound, 
^Entire, one solid shining diamond, 
INot sparkles shattered into sects like you : 
One is the Church, and must be to be true, 
One central principle of unity. 
As undivided, so from errors free ; 
As one in faith, so one in sanctity. 
Thus she, and none but she, the insulting rage 
Of heretics opposed from age to age ; 
Still when the giant-brood invades her throne, 
She stoops from heaven and meets them half-way down. 
And with paternal thunder vindicates her crown. 
But like Egyptian sorcerers you stand. 
And vainly lift aloft your magic wand 
To sweep away the swarms of vermin from the land 
You could like them, with like infernal force, 
Produce the plague, but not arrest the course. 
But when the boils and botches with disgrace 
And public scandal sat upon the face, 
Themselves attacked, the Magi strove no more. 
They saw G-od's finger, and their fate deplore ; 
Themselves they could not cure of the dishonest sore. 
Thus one, thus pure, behold her largely spread, 
Like the fair ocean from her mother-bed : 
Erom east to west triumphantly she rides. 
All shores are watered by her wealthy tides. 
The gospel-sound, diffused from pole to pole, 
Where winds can carry and where waves can roll, 



THE HIND AND THE PANTHER. 137' 

The self -same doctrine of the sacred page 
Conveyed to every clime, in every age. 

Here let my sorrow give my satire place^ 
To raise new blushes on my British race. 
Our sailing ships like common shores we use, 
And through our distant colonies diffuse 
The draughts of dungeons and the stench of stew^ 
Whom, when their home-bread honesty is lost, 
We disembogue on some far Indian coast ; 
Xhieves, pandars, palliards, sins of every sort ; 
Those are the manufactures we export, 
And these the missioners our zeal has made ; 
For, with my country's pardon be it said. 
Religion is the least of all our trade, 

Yet some improve their traffic more than we ; 
For they on gain, their only god, rely, 
And set a public price on piety. 
Industrious of the needle and the chart, 
They run full sail to their Japonian mart ; 
Prevention fear, and prodigal of fame, 
Sell all of Christian to the very name, 
Nor leave enough of that to hide their naked shanae;. 

Thus of three marks, which in the creed we 
view, 
Not one of all can he applied to you ; 
Much less the fourth. In vain, alas ! you seek 
The ambitious title of Apostolic : 
Grod-like descent I 'tis well your blood can be 
Proved noble in the third or fourth degree ; 
For all of ancient that you had before 
(I mean what is not borrowed from our store). 
Was error fulminated o'er and o'er ; 
Old heresies condemned in ages past, 
By care and time recovered from the blast. 

" 'Tis said with ease, but never can be proved,, 
The Church her old foundations has removed, 
And built new doctrines on unst^rble sands : 



138 deyden's poems. ^ 

Judge that, ye winds and rains ! you proved lier, yet ■ 

slie stands. ; 

Tiiose ancient doctrines charged on her for new, '■ 
Show when, and how, and from what hands they grew. ; 

We claim no power, when heresies grow bold, ! 

"To coin new faith, but still declare the old. ! 
How else could that obscene disease be purged. 

When controverted texts are vainly urged ? 1 

To prove tradition new, there's somewhat more ] 

Tlequired, than saying, 'Twas not used before. { 

'Those monumental arms are never stirred, j 

'Till schism or heresy call down G-oliath's sword. j 

" Thus what you call corruptions are in truth ^. 

The first plantations of the gospel's youth, ; 

"Old standard faith ; but cast your eyes again, ] 

And view those errors which new sects maintain, ! 
'Or which of old disturbed the Church's peaceful j 

reign ; 3 

-And we can point each period of the time, ] 

"When they began, and who begot the crime ; ] 

■Can calculate how long the eclipse endured, J 

Who interposed, what digits were obscured : ^ 

Of all which are already passed away, 'i 

We know the rise, the progress, and decay. ^ 

" Despair at our foundations then to strike, • \ 

Till you can prove your faith Apostolic, ; 
A limpid stream drawn from the native source. 

Succession lawful in a lineal course. ^ 

Prove any Church, opposed to this our head, j 

So one, so pure, so imconfinedly spread ] 

Under one chief of the spiritual state, • 

The members all combined, and all subordinate. i 

tShow such a seamless coat, from schism so free, ] 

In no communion joined with heresy. s 

If such a one you find, let truth prevail ; ! 

Till when, your weights will in the balance fail ; ; 

A Church unprincipled kicks up the scale. f 



THE HIND AND THE PANTHER. 139 

" But if you cannot think (nor sure you can 
Suppose in G-od wliat were unjust in man), 
That He, the fountain of eternal grace, 
Should suffer falsehood, for so long a space, 
To banish truth and to usurp her place ; 
That seven successive ages should be lost, 
And preach damnation at their proper cost ; 
That all your erring ancestors should die 
Drowned in the abyss of deep idolatry ; 
If piety forbid such thoughts to rise, 
Awake, and open your unwilling eyes 
Ood hath^left nothing for each age undone. 
From this to that wherein He sent His Son ; 
Then think but well of Him, and half your work is done. 

" See how His Church, adorned with every grace, 
With open arms, a kind forgiving face, 
Stands ready to prevent her long-lost son's embrace ! 
Not more did Joseph o'er his brethren weep, 
Not less himself could from discovery keep, 
When in the crowd of suppliants they were seen, 
And in their crew his best-beloved Benjamin, 
That pious Joseph in the Church behold. 
To feed your famine and refuse your gold ; 
The Joseph you exiled, the Joseph whom you sold." 

Thus, while with heavenly charity she spoke, 
A streaming blaze the silent shadows broke ; 
Shot from the skies a cheerful azure light ; 
The birds obscene to forests winged their flight. 
And gaping graves received the wandering guilty 
sprite. 

Such were the pleasing triumphs of the sky 
For James his late nocturnal victory ; " 
The pledge of his Almighty Patron's love. 
The fireworks which, his angels made above. 
I saw myself the lambent easy light 
Gild the brown horror and dispel the night : 
The messenger with speed the tidings bore, 



140 deyden's poems. 

News, wMcli three labouring nations did restore ;: 
But Heaven's own Xuncius was arrived before. 

By this the Hind had reached her lonely cell, 
And vapours rose, and dews unwholesome fell, 
When she, by frequent observation wise, 
As one who long on heaven had fixed her eyes, 
Discerned a change of weather in the skies. 
The western borders were with crimson spread, 
The moon descending looked all flaming red ; 
She thought good manners bound her to invite 
The stranger dame to be her guest that night. 
'Tis true, coarse diet and a short repast, 
She said, were weak inducements to the taste 
Of one so nicely bred and so unused to fast ; 
But what plain fare her cottage could Orfford, 
A hearty welcome at a homely board 
Was freely hers ; and to supply the rest, 
An honest meaning and an open breast. 
Last, with content of mind, the poor man's wealthy 
A grace-cup to their common patron's health. 
This she desired her to accept, and stay, 
For fear she might be 'wildered in her way, 
Because she wanted an unerring guide ; 
And then the dew-drops on her silken hide 
Her tender constitution did declare 
Too lady-like a long fatigue to bear, 
And rough inclemencies of raw nocturnal air. 
But most she feared that, travelling so late, 
Some evil-minded beasts might lie in wait, 
And without witness wreak their hidden hate. 

The- Panther, though she lent a listening ear,. 
Had more of Lion in her than to fear ; 
Yet wisely weighing, since she had to deal 
With many foes, their numbers might prevail, 
Returned her all the thanks she could afford, 
And took her friendly hostess at her word ; 
Who, entering first her lowly roof, a shed 



THE HIND AND THE PANTHER. 143 

With hoary moss and winding ivy spread, 
Honest enough to hide an humble hermit's head, 
Thus graciously bespoke her welcome guest : 
^' So might these walls, with your fair presence blest, 
Become your dwelling-place of everlasting rest, 
Not for a night, or quick revolving year, 
Welcome an owner, not a sojourner. 
This peaceful seat my poverty secures ; 
War seldom enters but where wealth allures : 
N©r yet despise it, for this poor abode 
Has oft received and yet receives a GTod ; 
A God, victorious of the Stygian race, 
Here laid his sacred limbs, and sanctified the place. 
This m.ean retreat did mighty Pan contain ; 
-Be emulous of him, and pomp disdain. 
And dare not to debase your soul to gain." 

The silent stranger stood amazed to see 
Contempt of wealth and wilful poverty : 
And, though ill habits are not soon controlled, 
A while suspended her desire of gold ; 
But civilly drew in her sharpened paws, 
Not violating hospitable laws, 
And pacified her tail and licked her frothy jaws. 

The Hind did first her country cates provide ; 
Than couched herself securely by her side. 



THE THIRD PART. 

Much malice mingled with a little wit 

Perhaps may censure this mysterious writ, 

Because the Muse has peopled Caledon 

With Panthers, Bears, and Wolves, and beasts unknown 

As if we were not stocked with monsters of our own. 

Let ^sop answer, who has set to view 

Such kinds as G-reece and Phrygia never knew ; 

And Mother Hubbard in her homely dress 

Has sharply blamed a British Lioness, 



142 DRYDEN'S POEMS. ' 

That Queen, whose feast the factious rabble keep / 

Exposed obscenely naked and asleep. j 

Led by those great examples, may nob I i 

The wanted organs of their words supply ? ] 

If men transact like brutes, 'tis equal then ] 

For brutes to claim the privilege of men. :i 

N/ Others our Hind of folly will indite -^n.- ^ 

To entertain a dangerous guest by night." I 

Let those remember, that she cannot die .] 

Till rolling time is lost in round eternity ; _^ 

Nor need she fear the Panther, though untamed, ; 
Because the Lion's peace was now proclaimed : 

The wary savage would not give ofEence, '] 

To forfeit the protection of her Prince, | 

But watched the time her vengeance to complete ■; 

When all her furry sons in frequent senate met ; • 

Meanwhile she quenched her fury at the flood, ' 

And with a lenten salad cooled her blood. i 
Their commons, though but coarse, were nothing scanty { 

Nor did their minds an equal banquet want. "f 

For now the Hind, whose noble nature strove • 

To express her plain simplicity of love, j 

Did all the honours of her house so well, ! 

No sharp debates disturbed the friendly meal. | 

She turned the talk, avoiding that extreme, '\ 

To common dangers past, a sadly pleasing theme ; 1 

Remembering every storm which tossed the State, i 
"When both were objects of the public hate. 
And dropped a tear betwixt for her own children's fate, i 

Nor failed she then a full review to make ,| 

Of what the Panther suffered for her sake : '; 

Her lost esteem, her truth, her loyal care, J 

Her faith unshaken to an exiled heir, ' 

Her strength to endure, her courage to defy, ) 

Her choice of honourable infamy. ^ 

On these prolixly thankful she enlarged : ■': 

Then with acknowledgments herself she charged ; ; 



THE HIND AND THE PANTHER. 14$ 

f For f riendsiiip, of itself an Jioly tie. 



I 



Is made more sacred by adversity. 
Now should they part, malicious tongues would say 
They met like chance companions on the way, 
Whom mutual fear of robbers had possessed ; 
While danger lasted, kindness was professed ; 
But that once o'er, the short-lived union ends, 
The road divides, and there divide the friends. 

The Panther nodded when her speech was done^ 
^d thanked her coldly in a hollow tone : 
But said, her gratitude had gone too far 
For common offices of Christian care. 
If to the lawful heir she had been true, 
She paid but Csesar what was Cassar's due. 
" I might," she added, " with like praise describe 
Your suffering sons, and so return your bribe ; 
But incense from my hands is poorly prized. 
For gifts are scorned where givers are despised. 
I served a turn, and then was cast away ; 
You, like the gaudy fly, your wings display. 
And sip the sweets, and bask in your great PatroBls 
day." 

This heard, the matron was not slow to find 
What sort of malady had seized her mind : 
Disdain, with gnawing envy, fell despite. 
And cankered malice stood in open sight : 
Ambition, interest, pride without control,,. 
And jealousy, the jaundice of the soul ; 
Revenge, the bloody minister of ill, 
With all the lean tormentors of the will. 
'Twas easy now to guess from whence arose 
Her new-made union with her ancient foes^ 
Her forced civilities, her faint embrace. 
Affected kindness with an altered face : 
Yet durst she not too deeply probe the wound,. 
As hoping still the nobler parts were sound ; 
But strove with anodynes to assuage the smarts 



244 dpoYden's poems. 

And mildly tlius lier medicine did impart; . 

" Complaints of lovers lielp to ease their pain ; 
It shows a rest of kindness to complain, 
A friendship loth to quit its former hold, 
An c\ conscious merit may be justly bold. 
But much more just your jealousy would show, 
If others' good were injury to you : 
Witness, ye heavens, how I rejoice to see 
Rewarded worth and rising loyalty ! 
Tour warrior offspring that upheld the crown, 
The scarlet honours of your peaceful gown. 
Are the most pleasing objects I can find. 
Oharms to my sight and cordials to my mind. 
When virtue spooms before a prosperous gale. 
My heaving wishes help to fill the sail : 
And if my prayers for all the brave were heard, 
Caesar should still have such, and such should still 

reward. 
*' The laboured earth your pains have sowed and 

tilled : 
*Tis just you reap the product of the field. 
Yours be the harvest, 'tis the beggar's gain 
To glean the fallings of the loaded wain. 
Such scattered ears as are not worth your care 
Your charity for alms may safely spare, 
And alms are but the vehicles of prayer. 
My daily bread is literally implored ; 
I have no barns nor granaries to hoard. 
If Cassar to his own his hand extends, 
Say which of yours his charity offends ; 
You know, he largely gives to more than are his 

friends. 
Are you defrauded, when he feeds the poor ? 
Our mite decreases nothing of your store. 
I am but few, and by your fare you see 
My crying sins are not of luxury. 
Some juster motive sure your mind withdraws 



THE HIND AND THE PANTHEIi. 145 

And makes you break our friendship's lioly laws, 
For barefaced envy is too base a cause. 

Show more occasion for your discontent ; 
Your love, the Wolf, would help you to invent. 
Some G-erman quarrel, or, as times go now, 
Some French, where force is uppermost, will do. 
When at the fountain's head, as merit ought 
To claim the place, you take a swilling draught, 
How easy 'tis an envious eye to throw 
And tax the sheep for troubling streams below ; 
Or call her, when no farther cause you find, 
An enemy professed of all your kind ! 
But then, perhaps, the wicked world would think 
The Wolf designed to eat as well as drink." 

This last allusion galled the Panther more, 
Because indeed it rubbed upon the sore ; 
Yet seemed she not to wince, though shrewdly pained, 
But thus her passive character maintained : 

" I never grudged, whate'er my foes report, 
Your flaunting fortune in the Lion's court. 
You have your day, or you are much belied. 
But I am always on the suffering side ; 
You know my doctrine, and I need not say 
I will not, but I cannot disobey. 
On this firm principle I ever stood ; 
He of my sons v,'ho fails to make it good 
By one rebellions act renounces to my blood." 

** Ah ! " said the Hind, " how many sons have yon 
Who call you mother whom you never knew ! 
But most of them who that relation plead 
Are such ungracious youths as wish you dead. 
They gape at rich revenues which you hold 
And fain would nibble at your grandam gold ; 
Inquire into your years, and laugh to find 
Your crazy temper shows you much declined. 
Were you not dim and doted, you might see 
A pack of cheats that claim a pedigree, 



146 drydbn's poems. 

No more of kin to you than you to me. 
Do you not know that for a little coin 
Heralds can foist a name into the line ? 

" Your sons of latitude that court your gracOy 
Though most resembling you in form and face^ 
Are far the worst of your pretended race ; 
And, but I blush your honesty to blot, 
Pray G-od you prove them lawfully begot : 
For in some Popish libels I have read 
The Wolf has been too busy in your bed ; 
At least their hinder parts, the belly-piece. 
The paunch and all that Scorpio claims are his. 
Their malice too a sore suspicion brings, 
For though they dare not bark, they snarl at 

kings. 
Nor blame them for intruding in your line ; 
Fat bishoprics are still of right divine. 
"Think you your new French proselytes are 
come 
To starve abroad, because they starved at home t 
Your benefices twinkled from afar, 
They found the new Messiah by the star. 
Those Swisses fight on any side for pay, 
And 'tis the living that conforms, not they. 
Mark with what management their tribes divide, 
Some stick to you, and some to t'other side, 
That many churches may for many mouths pro- 
vide. 
More vacant pulpits would more converts make ; 
All would have latitude enough to take. 
The rest unbeneficed your sects maintain, 
For ordinations without cures are vain, 
And chamber practice is a silent gain. 
Your sons of breadth at home are much like these ; 
Their soft and yielding metals run with ease ; 
They melt, and take the figure of the mould, 
But harden and preserve it best in gold." 



THE HIND AND THK PANTHER. 147 

" Your Delphic sword," the Panther then replied, 
" Is double-edged and cuts on either side. 
Some sons of mine, who bear upon their shield 
Three steeples argent in a sable field. 
Have sharply taxed your converts, who unfed 
^ Have followed you for miracles of bread ; 
Such who themselves of no religion are, 
Allured with gai:?i, for any will declare. 
Bare lies with bold assertions they can face, 
But dint of argument is out of place ; 
The grim logician puts them in a fright, 
'Tis easier far to flourish than to fight. 
Thus, our eighth Henry's marriage they defame ; 
They say the schism of beds began the game. 
Divorcing from the Church to wed the dame ; 
Though largely proved, and by himself professed. 
That conscience, conscience would not let him rest, 
I mean, not till possessed of her he loved. 
And old, uncharming Catherine was removed. 
For sundry years before did he complain. 
And told his ghostly confessor his pain. 
With the same impudence, without a ground 
They say that, look the Reformation round. 
No Treatise of Humility is found. 
But if none were, the Gospel does not want, 
/Our Saviour preached it, and I hope you grant 
The riermon in the Mount was Protestant." 

" No doubt," replied the Hind, " as sure as all 
The writings of Saint Peter and Saint Paul ; 
On that decision let it stand or fall. 
\ / Now for my converts, who, you say, unfed 
Have followed me for miracles of bread. 
Judge not by hearsay, but observe at least, 
If since their change their loaves have been increast. 
The Lion buys no converts ; if he did. 
Beasts would be sold as fast as he could bid. 
Tax those of interest who conform for gain 



148 deyden's poems. 

Or stay tlie market of another reig-n : 

Your broad- way sons would never be too nice 

To close with. Calvin, if he paid their price ; 

But, raised three steeples hig-her, would change their 

note, 
And quit the cassock for the canting coat. 
Now, if you damn this censure as too bold, 
Judge by yourselves, and think not others sold. 

" Meantime my sons accused by fame's report 
Pay small attendance at the Lion's court. 
Nor rise with early crowds nor flatter late 
(For silently they beg who daily wait). 
Preferment is bestowed that comes unsought ; 
Attendance is a bribe, and then 'tis bought. 
How they should speed their fortune is untried ; 
For not to ask is not to be denied. 
For what they have their G-od and King they bless, 
And hope they should not murmur had they less. 
But if reduced subsistence to implore. 
In common prudence they would pass your door. 
Unpitied Hudibras your champion friend. 
Has shown how far your charities extend. 
This lasting verse shall on his tomb be read, 
He shamed you livmg, and \L])l)raids you dead. 

" With odious atheist names you load your foes ; 
Your liberal clergy why did I expose ? 
It never fails in charities like those. 
In climes where true religion is professed, 
That imputation were no laughing jest ; 
But Imprimatur, with a chaplain's name. 
Is here sufficient licence to defame. 
What wonder is 't that black detraction thrives ? 
The homicide of names is less than lives. 
And yet the perjured murderer survives." 

This said, she paused a little and suppressed 
The boiling indignation of her breast. 
She knew the virtue of her blade, nor would 



THE HIND AND THE PANTHEE. 149 

Pollute lier satire with ignoble blood ; 
Her panting ifoes she saw before her lie, 
And back she drew the shining weapon dry. 
So when the generous Lion has in sight 
His equal match, he rouses for the fight ; 
But when his foe lies prostrate on the plain, 
He sheathes his paws, uncurls his angry mane, 
And, pleased with bloodless honours of the day. 
Walks over and disdains the inglorious prey. 
^So James, if great with less we may compare, 
Arrests his rolling thunderbolts in air ; 
And grants ungrateful friends a lengthened space 
To implore the remnants of long-suffering grace. 

This breathing-time the matron took ; and then 
Resumed the thread of her discourse again. 
" Be vengeance wholly left to powers divine. 
And let Heaven judge betwixt your sons and mine : 
If joys hereafter must be purchased here 
With loss of all that mortals hold so dear, 
Then welcome infamy and public shame. 
And last, a long farewell to worldly fame. 
'Tis said with ease, but oh, how hardly tried 
By haughty souls to human honour tied ! 
O sharp convulsive pangs of agonising pride ! 
Down then, thou rebel, never more to rise ; 
And what thou didst and dost so dearly prize, 
That fame, that darling fame, make that t6.y sacrifice. 
'Tis nothing thou hast given ; then add thy tears 
For a long race of unrepenting years : 
'Tis nothing yet, yet all thou hast to give : 
Then add those maybe years thou hast to live : 
Yet nothing still : then poor and naked come, 
Thy Father will receive his unthrift home. 
And thy blest Saviour's blood discharge the mighty 
sum. 

" Thus," she pursued, " I discipline a son, 
Whose unchecked fury to revenge would run : 



150 dryden's poems. 

He champs the bit, impatient of Ms loss, 
And starts aside and flounders at the Cross, 
Instruct Mm better, gracious God, to know 
As Thine is vengeance, so forgiveness too ; 
That, suffering from ill tongues, he bears no more 
Than what his Sovereign bears and what his Saviour 
bore. 

'' It now remains for you to school your child, 
And ask why God's anointed he reviled ; 
A King and Princess dead I did Shimei worse ? 
The cursor's punishment should fright the curse ;' 
Your son was warned, and wisely gave it o'er, 
But he who counselled him has paid the score ; 
The heavy malice could no higher tend, 
But woe to him on whom the weights descend. 
So to permitted ills the daemon flies ; 
His rage is aimed at him who rules the skies : 
Constrained to quit his cause, no succour found, 
The foe discharges every, tire around. 
In clouds of smoke abandoning the fight ; 
But his own thundering peals proclaim his flight. 

'* In Henry's change his charge as ill succeeds ; 
To that long story little answer needs : 
Confront but Henry's words with Henry's deeds. 
Were space allowed, with ease it might be proved, 
What springs his blessed reformation moved. 
The dire effects appeared in open sight, 
Which from the cause he calls a distant flight, 
And yet no larger leap than from the sun to light. 

" Now last, your sons a double psean sound, 
A Treatise of Humility is found. 
'Tis found, but better had it ne'er been sought 
Than thus in Protestant procession brought. 
The famed original through Spain is known, 
Rodriguez' work, my celebrated son. 
Which yours by ill -translating made his own ; 
Concealed its author, and usurped the name, 



THE HIND ^'SJ) THE PANTHER. 151 

Tiie basest and ignoblest theft of fame. 
My altars kindled first that living coal ; 
Restore, or practice better what you stole ; 
That virtue could this humble verse inspire, 
'Tis all the restitution I require." 

G-lad was the Panther that the charge was closed, 
And none of all her favourite sons exposed ; 
For laws of arms permit each injured man 
To make himself a saver where he can. 
Perhaps the plundered merchant cannot tell 
^he names of pirates in whose hands he fell ; 
But at the den of thieves he justly flies, 
And every Algerine is lawful prize. 
No private person in the foe's estate 
Can plead exemption from the public fate. 
Yet Christian laws allow not such redress ; 
Then let the greater supersede the less : 
But let the abettors of the Panther's crime 
Learn to make fairer wars another time. 
Some characters may sure be found to write 
Among her sons ; for 'tis no common sight, 
A spotted dam, and all her offspring white. 

The savage, though she saw her plea controlled, 
Yet would not wholly seem to quit her hold, 
But offered fairly to compound the strife ' 
'And judge conversion by the convert's life. 
" 'Tis true," she said, " I think it somewhat strange 
.So 'few should follow profitable change ; 
For present joys are more to flesh and blood 
Than a dull prospect of a distant good. 
'Twas well alluded by a son of mine 
(I hope to quote him is not to purloin), 
Two magnets, heaven and earth, allure to bliss ; 
The larger loadstone that, the nearer this : 
The weak attraction of the greater fails ; 
We nod a while, but neighbourhood prevails ; 
But when the greater proves the nearer too, 



152 DEYDEN'S POEMS. 

I wonder more your converts come so slow. 
MetMnks in those wlio firm -with me remain, 
It shows a nobler principle than gain." 

" Your inference would be strong," the Hind replied? 
" If yours were in effect the suffering side ; 
Your clergy-sons their own in peace possess, 
Nor are their prospects in reversion less. 
My proselytes are struck with awful dread, 
Your bloody comet-laws hang blazing o'er their head ; 
The respite they enjoy but only lent. 
The best they have to hope, protracted punishment. 
Be judge yourself, if interest may prevail, 
Which motives, yours or mine, will turn the scale. 
While pride and pomp allure, and plenteous ease, 
That is, till man's predominant passions cease, 
Admire no longer at my slow increase. 

" By education most have been misled ; 
So they believe, because they so were bred. 
The priest continues what the nurse began, 
And thus the child imposes on the man. 
The rest I named before, nor need repeat ; 
But interest is the most prevailing cheat, 
The sly seducer both of age and youth , 
They study that, and think they study truth. 
When interest fortifies an argument, 
Weak reason serves to gain the will's assent ; 
For souls, already warped, receive an easy bent. 
'• Add long prescription of established laws. 
And pique of honour to maintain a cause. 
And shame of change, and fear of future ill, 
And zeal, the blind conductor of the will ; 
And chief among the still-mistaking crowd, 
The fame of teachers obstinate and proud, 
And, more than all, the private judge allowed ; 
Disdain of Fathers which the dance began. 
And last, uncertain whose the narrower span, 
The clown unread, and half -read gentleman.** 



THE HIND AND THE PANTHER. 153 

To this the Panther, with a scornful smile : 
^' Yet still you travail with unwearied toil, 
And range around the realm without control. 
Among my sons for proselytes to prowl ; 
And here and there you snap some silly soul. 
You hinted fears of future change in state ; 
Pray Heaven you did not prophesy your fate ! 
Perhaps, you think your time of triumph near, 
But may mistake the season of the year ; 
The Swallows' fortune gives you cause to fear." 

" For charity," replied the matron, " tell 
What sad mischance those pretty birds befell." 

" Nay, no mischance," the savage dame replied. 
But want of wit is their unerring guide, 
And eager haste and gaudy hopes and giddy pride. 
Yet, wishing timely warning may prevail, 
Make you the moral, and I '11 tell the tale. 
" The Swallow, privileged above the rest 
Of all the birds as man's familiar guest, 
Pursues the sun in summer, brisk and bold, 
But wisely shuns the persecuting cold ; 
Is well to chancels and to chimneys known, 
Though 'tis not thought she feeds on smoke alone. 
From hence she has been held of heavenly line, 
Endued with particles of soul divine. 
This merry chorister had long possessed 
Her summer seat, and feathered well her nest ; 
Till frowning skies began to change their cheer. 
And time turned up the wrong side of the year ; 
The shedding trees began the ground to strow 
With yellow leaves, and bitter blasts to blow. 
Sad auguries of winter thence she drew. 
Which by instinct or prophecy she knew : 
When prudence warned her to remove betimes, 
And seek a better heaven and warmer climes. 

" Her sons were summoned on a steeple's height, 
And, called in common council, vote a flight ; 



154 dkyden's poems. 

The day was named, the next that should be fair ; 

All to the general rendezvous repair, 

They try their fluttering wings and trust themselve* 

in air ; 
But whether upward to the moon they go, 
Or dream the winter out in caves below, 
Or hawk at flies elsewhere concerns not us to know. 
*' Southwards, you may be sure, they bent their 

And harboured in a hollow rock at night ; 
Next morn they rose, and set up every sail ; 
The wind was fair, but blew a mackerel gale : 
The sickly young sat shivering on the shore, 
Abhorred salt-water seen never before, 
And prayed their tender mothers to delay 
The passage, and expect a fairer day. 

" With these the Martin readily concurred, 
A church-begot and church-believing bird j 
Of little body, but of lofty mind. 
Round bellied, for a dignity designed, 
And much a dunce, as Martins are by kind ;. 
Yet often quoted Canon-laws and Code 
And Fathers which he never understood ; 
But little learning needs in noble blood. 
For, sooth to say, the Swallow brought him in 
Her household chaplain and her next-of-kin : 
In superstition silly to excess. 
And casting schemes by planetary guess ,' 
In fine, short winged, unfit himself to fly^ 
His fear foretold foul weather in the sky. 

" Besides, a Raven from a withered oak 
Left of their lodging was observed to croaks 
That omen liked him not ; so his advice 
Was present safety, bought at any price ; 
A seeming pious care that covered cowardice. 
To strengthen this, he told a boding dream, 
Of rising waters and a troubled stream, 



THE HIND AND THE PANTxTER. 155 

Sure signs of ang-uisli, dangers, and distress, 

With something more not lawful to express : 

By which he slyly seemed to intimate 

Some secret revelation of their fate. 

For he concluded, once upon a time, 

He found a leaf inscribed with sacred rhyme, 

Whose antique characters did well denote 

The Sibyl's hand of the Cum^an grot : 

The ma4 divineress had plainly writ, 

j^time should come (but many ages yet) 

In which sinister destinies ordain 

A dame should drown with all her feathered train, 

And seas from "thence be called the Chelidonian main. 

At this, some shook for fear ; the more devout 

Arose, and blessed themselves from head to foot. 

" 'Tis true, some stagers of the wiser sort 
Made all these idle wonderments their sport : 
They said, their only danger was delay, 
And he who heard what every fool could say 
Would never fix his thoughts, but trim his time away. 
The passage yet was good ; the wind, 'tis true. 
Was somewhat high, but that was nothing new, 
Nor more than usual equinoxes blew. 
The sun, already from the Scales declined, 
Gave little hopes of better days behind. 
But change from bad to worse of weather and of wind... 
Nor need they fear the dampness of the sky 
Should flag their wings, and hinder them to fly : 
'Twas only water thrown on sails too dry. 
But, least of all, philosophy presumes 
Of truth in dreams from melancholy fumes : 
Perhaps the Martin, housed in holy ground. 
Might think of ghosts that walk their midnight 

round, 
Till grosser atoms tumbling in the stream 
Of fancy madly met and clubbed into a dreant : 
As little weight his vain presages bear, 



156 dhyden's poems. 

Of ill effect to such, alone wIig fear ; 

Most prophecies are of a piece with these, 

Each Nostradamus can foretell with ease : 

Not naming persons, and confounding times, 

One casual truth supports a thousand lying rhymes. 

" The advice was true ; but fear had seized the most 
And all good counsel is on cowards lost. 
The question crudely put to shun delay, 
'Twas carried by the major part to stay. ^ 

" His point thus gained, Sir Martin dated thence 
His power, and from a priest became a prince. 
He ordered all things with a busy care, 
And cells and refectories did prepare, 
And large provisions laid of winter fare ; 
But now and then let fall a word or two 
Of hope, that Heaven some miracle might show, 
And for their sakes the sun should backward go, 
Against the laws of nature upward climb, 
And, mounted on the Ram, renew the prime ; 
For which two proofs in sacred story lay, 
■ Of Ahaz' dial and of Joshua's day. 
In expectation of such times as these, 
A chapel housed them, truly called of ease ; 
For Martin much devotion did not ask ; 
They prayed sometimes, and that was all their task. 

" It happened (as beyond the reach of wit 
Blind prophecies may have a lucky hit) 
That this accomplished, or at least in part, 
G-ave great repute to their new Merlin's art. 
Some Swifts, the giants of the Swallow kind. 
Large-limbed, stout-hearted, but of stupid mind 
(For Swisses or for G-ibeonites designed). 
These lubbers, peeping through a broken pane 
To suck fresh air, surveyed the neighbouring plain, 
And saw (but scarcely could believe their eyes) 
New blossoms flourish and new flowers arise, 
As God had been abroad, and walking there 



THE HIND A.ND THE PANTHER. 157 

Had left His footsteps and reformed the year. 
The sunny hills from far were seen to glow 
With glittering beams, and in the meads below 
The burnished brooks appeared with liquid gold to 

flow. 
At last they heard the foolish Cuckoo sing, 
Whose note proclaimed the holy-day of spring. 

" No longer doubting, all prepare to fly 
And repossess their patrimonal sky. 
T^e priest before them did his wings display ; 
And that good omens might attend their way, 
As luck would have it, 'twas St. Martin's day. 

" Who -but the Swallow now triumphs alone ? 
The canopy of heaven is all her own ; 
Her youthful offspring to their haunts repair, 
And glide along in glades, and skim in air, 
And dip for insects in the purling springs, 
And stoop on rivers to refresh their wings. 
Their mothers think a fair provision made, 
That every son can live upon his trade. 
And, now the careful charge is off their hands. 
Look out for husbands and new nuptial bands. 
The youthful widow longs to be supplied ; 
But first the lover is by lawyers tied 
To settle jointure-chimneys on the bride. 
So thick they couple, in so short a space, 
That Martin's marriage-offerings rise apace ; 
Their ancient houses, running to decay, 
Are furbished up and cemented with clay. 
They teem already ; stores of eggs are laid, 
And brooding mothers call Lucina's aid. 
Fame spreads the news, and foreign fowls appear 
In flocks to greet the new returning year. 
To bless the founder and partake the cheer. 

" And now 'twas time (so fast their numbers rise) 
To plant abroad, and people colonies. 
The youth drawn forth, as Mart-'n had desired 



158 deyden's poems. 

I 

(For so their cruel destiny required), j 

Were sent far off on an ill-fated day ; i 

The rest would need conduct them on their way, \ 

And Martin went, because he feared alone to stay. •' 

" So long they flew with inconsiderate haste, i 

That now their afternoon began to waste ; i 
And, what was ominous, that very morn 

The Sun was entered into Capricorn : j 

Which, by their bad astronomers' account, ] 

That week the Virgin balance should remount ' ] 

An infant moon eclipsed him in his way, j 

And hid the small remainders of his day. l 

The crowd amazed pursued no certain mark, . 

But birds met birds, and justled in the dark. ■ 

Few mind the public in a panic fright, i 

And fear increased the horror of the night. ■ 

Night came, but unattended with repose ; \ 

Alone she came, no sleep their eyes to close ; -'; 

Alone, and black she came ; no friendly stars arose, } 

" What should they do, beset with dangers round, :l 

No neighbouring dorp, no lodging to be found, ^ 

But bleaky plains, and bare unhospitable ground ? i 

The latter brood, who just began to fly, \ 

Sick-feathered and unpractised in the sky, \ 

For succour to their helpless mother call : I 

She spread her wings ; some few beneath them crawl ;1 

She spread them wider yet, but could not cover all, '• 

To augment their woes, the winds began to move J, 

Debate in air for empty fields above, ^ 

Till Boreas got the skies, and poured amain ] 

His rattling hailstones mixed with snow and rain. 4 

" The joyless morning late arose, and found 

A dreadful desolation reign around, ] 

Some buried in the snow, some frozen to the ground. ■? 

The rest were struggling still with death, and lay ! 

The Crows' and Ravens' rights, an undefended prey, 1 

Excepting Martin's race ; for they and he I 



i 

-■{ 

THE HIND AND THE PANTHER. 159 | 

Had gained tlie shelter of a hollow tree : j 

But soon discovered by a sturdy clown, ^ 

He headed all the rabble of a town, j 

And finished them with bats, or polled them down. ;i 

Martin himself was caught alive, and tried .i 

Por treasonous crimes, because the laws provide ■ ] 

No Martin there in winter shall abide. .] 

High on an oak which never leaf shall bear, ] 

"He breathed his last, exposed to open air ; •; 

^ And there his corpse, unblessed, is hanging still, | 
To show the change of winds with his prophetic bill." 'I 

The patience of the Hind did almost fail, ■ 

For well she marked the malice of the tale ; 5 

Which ribald art their Church to Luther owea ; \ 

In malice it began, by malice grows ; ^^ 

He sowed the Serpent's teeth, an iron-harvest rose ) 

But most in Martin's character and fate \i 

She saw her slandered sons, the Panther's hate, 1 

The people's rage, the persecuting State : J 

Then said, " I take the advice in friendly part ; I 

You clear your conscience, or at least your heart. '^ 

Perhaps you failed in your foreseeing skill, | 
For Swallows are unlucky birds to kill : ' .< 

As for my sons, the family is blessed q 

Whose every child is equal to the rest ; "? 

No Church reformed can boast a blameless line, i 

Such Martins build in yours, and more than mine ; 4 

Or else an old fanatic author lies, i; 

Who summed their scandals up by centuries. j 

But through your parable I plainly see ':i 

The bloody laws, the crowd's barbarity ; ' | 

The sunshine that offends the purblind sight, | 

Had some their wishes, it would soon be night. -| 

Mistake me not ; the charge concerns not you ; | 

Your sons are malcontents, but yet are true, ) 

As far as non-resistance makes them so ; t 

But that's a word of neutral sense, you know, i 



160 deyden's poems. \ 

•-I 

A passive term, whicli no relief will bring", ] 

But trims betwixt a rebel and a king." ^ 

" Rest well assured," the Pardalis replied, i 

" My sons would all support the regal side, .- 
Though Heaven forbid the cause by battle should be- 

tried." \ 

The matron answered with a loud " Amen 1 " ! 
And thus pursued her argument again : 

" If, as you say, and as I hope no less, i 

Your sons will practise what yourself profess, ;^: 

What angry power prevents our present peace ? ■■ 

The Lion, studious of our common good, ') 

Desires (and kings' desires are ill withstood) i 

To join our nations in a lasting love ; ; 

The bars betxixt are easy to remove, j 

For sanguinary laws were never made above. .^ 

If you condemn that Prince of tyranny, ; 
Whose mandate forced your Gallic friends to fly, 

Make not a worse example of your own ; : 

Or cease to rail at causeless rigour shown, I 

And let the guiltless person throw the stone. i 
His blunted sword your suffering brotherhood 

Have seldom felt ; he stops it short of blood : ! 

But you have ground the persecuting knife j 

And set it to a razor edge on life. , 

Cursed be the wit which cruelty refines ', 

Or to his father's rod the scorpion joins ; I 
Your finger is more gross than the great monarch's- | 

loins. i 

But you perhaps remove that bloody note >, 

And stick it on the first Reformer's coat. ] 

Oh, let their crime in long oblivion sleep ; 'i 

'Twas theirs indeed to make, 'tis yours to keep. ' 
Unjust or just is all the question now ; * 

'Tis plain that, not repealing, you allow. ? 

" To name the Test would put you in a rage ; , 

You charge not that on any former age, \ 



THE HIND AND THE PANTHER. 161 

But smile to think how innocent you stand, 
Armed by a weapon put into your hand. 
Yet still remember that you wield a sword 
Forged by your foes against your sovereign, lord ; 
Designed to hew the imperial cedar down, 
Befraud succession and disheir the crown. 
To abhor the makers and their laws approve 
Is to hate traitors and the treason love : 
"What means it else, which now your children say, 
We made it not, nor will we take away ? 

^ Suppose some great oppressor had by slight 
Of law disseised your brother of his right, 
Your common sire surrendering in a fright ; 
"Would you to that unrighteous title stand, 
Left by the villain's will to heir the land / 
More just was Judas, who his Saviour sold ; 
The sacrilegious bribe he could not hold, 
Nor hang in peace before he rendered back the gold, 
"What more could you have done than now you do, 
Had Gates and ^edlow and their Plot been true ? 
Some specious reasons for those wrongs were found ; 
The dire magicians threw their mists around, 
And wise men walked as on enchanted ground. 
But now, when Time has made the imposture plain 
(Late though he followed truth, and limping held 

her train), 
"What new delusion charms your cheated eyes again ? 
The painted harlot might a while bewitch. 
But why the hag uncased and all obscene with itch ? 

" The first Reformers were a modest race ; 
Our peers possessed in peace their native place, 
And when rebellious arms o'erturned the State 
They sufEered only in the common fate ; 
But now the Sovereign mounts the regal chair, 
And mitred seats are full, yet David's bench is bare. 
Your answer is, they were not dispossessed ; 
They need but rub their metal on the Test 



162 dryden's poems. 

To prove their ore ; 'twere well if gold alone i 

Were touclied and tried on your discerning stone \ 

But that unfaithful Test unf ound will pass ' 

The dross of atheists and sectarian brass ; J 

As if the experiment were made to hold -] 

For base productions, and reject the gold. '; 

Thus men ungodded may to places rise, ' 
And sects may be preferred without disguise ; 

No danger to the Church or State from these ; J 

The Papist only has his writ of ease. j 

No gainful office gives him the pretence | 
To grind the subject or defraud the prince. 

Wrong conscience or no conscience may deserve | 

To thrive, but ours alone is privileged to starve. i 

" Still thank yourselves, you cry ;^your noble race i 

We banish not, but they forsake the place : i 

O'lr doors are open. True, but ere they come, '■ 

You toss your censing Test and fume the room ; ; 

As if 'twere Toby's rival to expel, i 
And fright the fiend who could not bear the smell." i 

To this the Panther sharply had replied ; ' 

But, having gained a verdict on her side, /\ 

She wisely gave the loser leave to chide ; j 

Well satisfied to have the butt and peace, i 

And for the plaintiff's cause she cared the less, , | 

Because she sued in forma pauperis ; \ 

Yet thought it decent something should be said, ; 

For secret guilt by silence is betrayed. ■'] 

So neither granted all, nor much denied, ^ 

But answered with a yawning kind of pride : J 

" Methinks such terms of proffered peace you bring, ; 

As once ^neas to the Italian king. I 

By long possession all the land is mine ; 'i 

You strangers come with your intruding line ; 

To share my sceptre, which you call to join. ■ 

You plead like him an ancient pedigree :■ 

And claim a peaceful seat by Fate's decree : ; 



THE HIND AND THE PANTHER. 163 

In ready pomp your sacrificer stands, 

To unite the Trojan and the Latin bands : 

And that the league more firmly may be tied, 

Demand the fair Lavinia for your bride. 

Thus plausibly you veil the intended wrong-, 

But still you bring your exiled gods along ; 

And will endeavour, in succeeding space. 

Those household poppits on our hearths to place. 

Perhaps some barbarous laws have been preferred ; 

I spake against the Test, but was not heard. 

These to rescind and peerage to restore 

My gracious Sovereign would my vote implore ; 

I owe him much, but owe my conscience more." 

" Conscience is then your plea," replied the dame, 
" Which, |vell-inf ormed, will ever be the same. 
But yours is much of the cameleon hue. 
To change the dye with every different view. , 
When first the Lion sat with awful sway. 
Tour conscience taught you duty to obey ; 
He might have had your statutes and your Test ; 
No conscience but of subjects was professed. 
He found your temper and no farther tried, 
But on that broken reed, your Church, relied. 
In vain the sects assayed their utmost art, 
With offered treasures to espouse their part ; 
Their treasures were a bribe too mean to move hig 

heart. 
But when, by long experience, you had proved 
How far he could forgive, how well he loved ; 
A goodness that excelled his godlike race. 
And only short of Heaven's unbounded grace ; 
A flood of mercy that o'erflowed our isle. 
Calm in the rise, and fruitful as the Nile ; 
Forgetting whence your Egypt was supplied. 
You thought your Sovereign bound to send the 

tide ; 
Nor upward looked on that immortal spring, 



DEYDEN S POEMS. 

But vainly deemed he durst not be a king : 
Then Conscience, unrestrained by fear, began 
To stretch her limits, and extend the span ; 
Did his indulgence as her gift dispose, 
And made a wise alliance with her foes. 
Can Conscience own the associating name, 
And raise no blushes to conceal her shame ? 
For sure she has been thought a bashful dame. 
But if the cause by battle should be tried, 
You grant she must espouse the regal side ; 
Proteus Conscience, never to be tied 1 
What Phoebus from the tripod shall disclose 
Which are in last resort your friends or foes ? 
Homer, who learned the language of the sky, 
The seeming Gordian knot would soon* untie ; 
Immortal powers the term of Conscience know, 
But Interest is her name with men below." 

" Conscience or Interest be it, or both in one," 
The Panther answered in a surly tone ; 
" The first commands me to maintain the crown 
The last forbids to throw my barriers down. 
Our penal laws no sons of yours admit, 
Our Test excludes your tribe from benefit. 
These are my banks your ocean to withstand, 
Which proudly rising overlooks the land. 
And, once let in with unresisted sway 
Would sweep the pastors and their flocks away. 
Think not my judgment leads me to comply 
With laws unjust, but hard necessity : 
Imperious need, which cannot be withstood, 
Makes ill authentic for a greater good. 
Possess your soul with patience, and attend ; 
A more auspicious planet may ascend ; 
Grood fortune may present some happier time, 
With means to cancel my unwilling crime ; 
(Unwilling, witness all ye Powers above 1) 
To mend my errors, and redeem your love : 



THE HIND AND THE PANTHER. 165 ^ 

That little space you safely may allow ; , j 

Your all-dispensing power protects you now." -i 

" Hold," said the Hind, " 'tis needless to explain ; ! 

You would postpone me to another reign ; J 

Till when, you are content to be unjust : -^i 

Your part is to possess, and mine to trust. : 
A fair exchange proposed of future chance 
For present profit and inheritance. - \ 

Few words will serve to finish our dispute ; J 

•Who will not now repeal would persecute. 1 

To ripen green revenge your hopes attend, j 

Wishing that happier planet would ascend. -j 

For shame, let Conscience be your plea no more ; ? 
To will hereafter proves she might before : - J 

But she's a bawd to gain, and holds the door. "'i 

" Your care about your banks infers a fear I 

Of threatening floods and inundations near ; | 

If so, a just reprise would only be j 

Of what the land usurped upon the sea ; ■< 

And all your jealousies bub serve to show ■;: 

Your ground is, like your neighbour-nation, low. I 

To entrench in what you grant unrighteous laws V*! 

Is to distrust the justice of your cause, ■'i 

And argues, that the true religion lies 5 

In those weak adversaries you despise. '] 

" Tyrannic force is that which least you fear ; ■• 

The sound is frightful in a Christian's ear : i 

Avert it, Heaven ! nor let that plague be sent I 

To us from the dispeopled continent. -1 

" But piety commands me to refrain ; | 

Those prayers are needless iu this Monarch's reign | 

Behold how he protects your friends oppressed, 'I 

Receives the banished, succours the distressed ! 1 

Behold, for you may read an honest open breast. 1 

He stands in daylight, and disdains to hide J 

An act to which by honour he is tied, i, 

A generous, laudable, and kingly pride. i 



166 dryden's poems. 

Your Test lie would repeal, Ms peers restore ; 
TMs when lie says he means, lie means no more.'* 

"Well," said the Panther, "I believe him just, 
And yet^— " 

"And yet, 'tis but because you must. 
You would be trusted, but you would not trust." 
The Hind thus briefly ; and disdained to enlarge 
On power of kings and their superior charge, 
As Heaven's trustees before the people's choice, 
Though sure the Panther did not much rejoice 
To hear those echoes given of her once loyal voice. 

The matron wooed her kindness to the last, 
But could not win ; her hour of grace was past. 
Whom thus persisting when she could not bring 
To leave the Wolf and to believe her King, 
She gave her up, and faiily wished her joy 
Of her late treaty with her new ally : 
Which well she hoped would more successful prove^ 
Than was the Pigeon's and the Buzzard's love. 
The Panther asked what concord there could be 
Betwixt two kinds whose natures disagree ? 
The dame replied : " 'Tis sung in every st eej, 
The common chat of gossips when they meet ; 
But since unheard by you, 'tis worth your while 
To take a vh)lesome tale, though told in homely 
style. 

" A plain good man, whose name is understood, 
(So few deserve the name of plain and good) 
Of three fair lineal lordships stood possessed,- 
And lived, as reason was, upon the best. 
Enured to hardships from his early youth, 
Much had he done and suffered for his truth : 
At land and sea, in many a doubtful fight, 
Was never known a more adventurous knight. 
Who oftener drew his sword, and always for the 
right. 

" As Portune would (his fortune came though late), 



THE HIND AND THE PANTHEK. 167 

He took possession of Ms just estate ; 

Nor racked Ms tenants with increase of rent, 

Nor lived too sparing, nor too largely spent ; 

But overlooked his hinds ; their pay was just 

And ready, for he scorned to go on trust : 

Slow to resolve, but in performance quick, 

So true that he was awkward at a trick. 

For little souls on little shifts rely 

And cowards arts of mean expedients try ; 

Jhe noble mind will dare do anything but lie. 

False friends (his deadliest foes) could find no way 

But shows of honest bluntness, to betray : 

That unsuspected plainness he believed ; 

He looked into himself, and was deceived. 

Some lucky planet sure attends his birth, 

Or Heaven would make a miracle on earth, 

For prosperous honesty is seldom seen 

To bear so dead a weight, and yet to win ; 

It looks as Fate with Nature's law would strive 

To show plain-dealing once an age may thrive ; 

And, when so tough a frame she could not bend. 

Exceeded her commission to befriend. 

" This grateful man, as Heaven increased Ms store 
Grave G-od again, and daily fed his poor. 
His house with all convenience was purveyed ; 
The rest he found, but raised the fabric where he 

prayed ; 
And in that sacred place his beauteous wife 
Employed her happiest hours of holy life. 

" Nor did their alms extend to those alone 
Whom common faith more strictly made their own ; 
A sort of Doves were housed too near their hall. 
Who cross the proverb, and abound with gall. 
Though some, 'tis true, are passively inclined. 
The greater part degenerate from their kind ; 
Voracious birds, that hotly bill and breed, 
And largely drink, because on salt they feed. 



168 deyden's poems. 

Small gain from tliem their bounteous owner draws, 
Yet, bound by promise, lie supports their cause, 
As corporations privileged by laws, 

" That house, which harbour to their kind affords, 
"Was built long since, God knows, for better birds ; 
But fluttering there, they nestle near the throne, 
And lodge in habitations not their own. 
By their high crops and corny gizzards known. 
Like harpies, they could scent a plenteous board ; 
Then, to be sure, they never failed their lord ; 
The rest was form, and bare attendance paid ; 
They drunk, and eat, and grudgingly obeyed. 
The more they fed, they ravened still for more ; 
They drained from Dan, and left Beersheba poor. 
All this they had by law, and none repined ; 
The preference was but due to Levi's kind ; 
But when some lay-preferment fell by chance, 
The gourmands made it their inheritance. 
WTien once possessed they never quit their claim, 
For then 'tis sanctified to Heaven's high name ; 
And hallowed thus, they cannot give consent 
The gift should be profaned by worldly management. 

" Their flesh was never to the table served ; 
Though 'tis not thence inferred the birds were 

starved ; 
But that their master did not like the food, 
As rank, and breeding melancholy blood. 
Is'or did it with his gracious nature suit. 
Even though they were not Doves, to persecute : 
Yet he refused (nor could they take offence) 
Their glutton kind should teach him abstinence. 
Nor consecrated grain their wheat he thought. 
Which, new from treading, in their bills they brought : 
But left his hinds each in his private power, 
That those who like the bran might leave the flour. 
He for himself, and not for others, chose, 
Nor would he be imposed on, nor impose ; 



THE HIND AND THE PANTHER. 16& 

But in their faces his devotion paid, 
And sacrifice with solemn rites was made, 
And sacred incense on his altars laid. 

" Besides these jolly birds, whose crops impure 
Repaid their commons with their salt manure, 
Another farm he had behind his house, 
Not overstocked, but barely for his use ; 
Wherein his poor domestic poultry fed, 
And from his pious hands received their bread. 
Oaar pampered Pigeons with malignant eyes. 
Beheld these inmates and their nurseries ; 
Though hard their fare, at evening and at morn, 
A cruse of water and an ear of corn. 
Yet still they grudged that modicum, and thought. 
A sheaf in every single grain was brought. 
Fain would they filch that little food away, 
While unrestrained those happy gluttons prey. 
And much they grieved to see so nigh their hall 
The bird that warned St. Peter of his fall ; 
That he should raise his mitred crest on high, 
And cl' o his wings and call his family 
To sacred rites ; and vex the ethereal powers 
With midnight matins at uncivil hours ; 
Nay more, his quiet neighbours should molest, 
Just in the sweetness of their morning rest. 

" Beast of a bird, supinely when he might 
Lie snug and sleep, to rise before the light 1 
What if his dull forefathers used that cry, 
Could he not let a bad example die ? 
The world was fallen into an easier way ; 
This age knew better than to fast and pray. 
Good sense in sacred worship would appear , 
So to begin as they might end the year. 
Such feats in former times had wrought the falls- 
Of crowing Chanticleers in cloistered walls. 
Expelled for this and for their lands, they fled, 
And sister Parblet. with her hooded head, 



170 dryden's poems. 

Was hooted hence, because she would not pray a-bed. 

The way to win the restiff world to G-od 

Was to lay by the disciplining- rod, 

Unnatural fasts, and foreign forms of prayer ; 

E,eligion frights us with a mien severe. 

'Tis prudence to reform her into ease, 

And put her in undress, to make her please ; 

A livel}^ faith will bear aloft the mind 

And leave the luggage of good works behind. 

" Such doctrines in the Pigeon-house were taught ; 
You need not ask how wondrously they wrought ; 
But sure the common cry was all for these. 
Whose life and precepts both encouraged ease. 
Yet fearing those alluring baits might fail, 
And holy deeds o'er all their arts prevail, 
(For vice, though f rontless and of hardened face. 
Is daunted at the sight of awful grace,) 
An hideous figure of their foes they drew, 
Nor lines, nor looks, nor shades, nor colours true ; 
And this grotesque design exposed to public view. 
One would have thought it an Egyptian piece, 
With garden-gods, and barking deities. 
More thick than Ptolemy has stuck the skies. 
All so perverse a draught, so far unlike. 
It was no libel where it meant to strike. 
Yet still the daubing pleased, and great and small 
To view the monster crowded Pigeon-hall. 
There Chanticleer was drawn upon his knees, 
Adoring shrines and stocks of sainted trees ; 
And by him a misshapen ugly race ; 
The curse of G-od was seen on every face. 
Ko Holland emblem could that malice mend, 
But still the worse the look the fitter for a fiend, 

" The master of the farm, displeased to find 
So much of rancour in so mild a kind. 
Inquired into the cause, and came to know 
The passive Church had struck the foremost blow ; 



THE HIND AND THE PANTHER. 171 

Witli groundless fears and jealousies possest, 
As if this troublesome intruding guest 
Would drive tlie birds of Venus from their nest ; 
A deed his inborn equity abhorred ; 
But interest will not trust, though G-od should plight 
his word. 

" A law, the source of many future harms, 
Had banished all the poultry from the farms, 
With loss of life, if any should be found 
JJo crow or peck on this forbidden ground. 
That bloody statute chiefly was designed 
For Chanticleer the white, of clergy kind ; 
But after malice did not long forget 
The lay that wore the robe and coronet. 
For them, for their inferiors and allies, 
Their foes a deadly Shibboleth devise : 
By which unrighteously it was decreed, 
That none to trust or profit should succeed. 
Who would not swallow first a poisonous wicked 

weed ; 
Or that to which old Socrates Was curst. 
Or henbane juice to swell them till they burst. 
The patron, as in reason, thought it hard 
To see this inquisition in his yard, 
By which the Sovereign was of subjects' use debarred. 

" All gentle means he tried, which might withdraw 
The effects of so unnatural a law : 
But still the Dove- house obstinately stood 
Beaf to their own and to their neig"hbours' good ; * 
And which was worse, if any worse could be, 
Bepented of their boasted loyalty ; 
Now made the champions of a cruel cause, 
And drunk with fumes of popular applause : 
For those whom G-od to ruin has designed, 
He fits for fate, and first destroys their mind. 

" New doubts indeed they daily strove to raise, 
Suggested dangers, interposed delays ; 



172 DEYDEISr'S POEMS. 

3 

And emissary Pigeons had in store, j 

Sucli as tlie Meccan prophet used of yore, ' 

To whisper counsels in their patron's ear ; ,S 

And veiled their false advice with zealous fear. j 

The master smiled to see them work in vain, 'I 

To wear him out and make an idle reign : ] 

He saw, but suffered their protractive arts, : 

And strove by mildness to reduce their hearts ; ; 

But they abused that grace to make allies ;- 

I And fondly closed with former enemies ; : 

For fools are double fools, endeavouring to be wise. .- 

" After a grave consult what course were best, I 

One, more mature in folly than the rest, ■ 

Stood up, and told them with his head aside, ' 
That desperate cures must be to desperate ills ap- ■- 

plied : 

And therefore, since their main impending fear \ 

Was from the increasing race of Chanticleer, ■; 
Some potent bird of prey they ought to find, 

A foe professed to him and all his kind : ) 

Some haggard Hawk, who had her eyry nigh, ■ 

Well pounced to fasten, and well winged to fly : } 
One they might trust their common wrongs to ^ 

wreak, .i 

The Musquet and the Coystrel were too weak ; ; 

Too fierce the Falcon ; but, above the rest, ^j 

The noble Buzzard ever pleased me best : j 

Of small renown, 'tis true ; for, not to lie, | 

We call him but a Hawk by courtesy. ;! 

I know he haunts the Pigeon-house and farm, ;' 

And more, in time of war has done us harm : • 

But all his hate on trivial points depends ; 1 

Grive up our forms, and we shall soon be friends. :; 

For pigeons' flesh he seems not much to care ; ^ 

Crammed chickens are a more delicious fare. j 

On this high potentate, without delay, - 

I wish you would confer the sovereign sway ; ; 



THE HIND AND THE PANTHER. 173 

Petition him to accept the government, 
And let a splendid embassy be sent. 

" This pithy speech prevailed ; and all agreed, 
Old enmities forgot, the Buzzard should succeed. 

•' Their welcome suit was granted soon as heard, 
His lodgings furnished, and a train prepared, 
With B's upon their breast, appointed for his guard. 
He came, and crowned with great solemnity, 
God save king Buzzard ! was the general cry. 
^ "A portly prince, and goodly to the sight, 
He seemed a son of Anak for his height : 
Like those whom stature did to crowns prefer ; 
Black-browed and bluff, like Homer's Jupiter ; 
Broad-backed and brawny, built for love's delight 
A prophet formed to make a female proselyte; (^^ 
A theologue more by need than genial bent ; 
By breeding sharp, by nature confident, 
Interest in all his actions was discerned ; 
More learned than honest, more a wit than learned ; 
Or forced by fear or by his profit led. 
Or* both conjoined, his native clime he fled : 
But brought the virtues of his heaven along ; 
A fair behaviour, and a fluent tongue. 
And yet with all his arts he could not thrive. 
The most unlucky parasite alive ; 
Loud praises to prepare his paths he sent, 
And then himself pursued his compliment ; 
But by reverse of fortune chased away, 
His gifts no longer than their author stay ; 
He shakes the dust against the ungrateful race, 
And leaves the stench of ordures in the place. 
Oft has he flattered and blasphemed the same, 
For in his rage he spares no sovereign's name : 
The hero and the tyrant change their style 
By the same measure that they frown or smile. 
When well received by hospitable foes, 
The kindness he returns is to expose ; 



174 deyden's poems. 

For courtesies, though, undeserved and great, 

No gratitude in felon-minds beget ; 

As tribute to his wit, the churl receives the treat. 

His praise of foes is venomously nice ; 

So touched, it turns a virtue to a vice ; 

A Greek, and hountiful, forewarns us tioice. 

Seven sacraments he wisely does disown, 

Because he knows Confession stands for one j 

Where sins to sacred silence are conveyed, 

And not for fear or love to be betrayed : 

But he, uncalled, his patron to control. 

Divulged the secret whispers of his soul ; 

Stood forth the accusing Satan of his crimes. 

And offered to the Moloch of the times. 

Prompt to assail, and careless of defence, 

Invulnerable in his impudence, 

He dares the world and, eager of a name. 

He thrusts about and justles into fame. 

Frontless and satire-proof, he scours the streets, 

And runs an Indian muck at all he meets. 

So fond of loud report, that not to miss 

Of being known, (his last and utmost bliss,) 

He rather would be known for what he is. 

" Such was and is the Captain of the Test, 
Though half his virtues are not here exprest ; 
The modesty of fame conceals the rest. 
The spleenful Pigeons never could create 
A prince more proper to revenge their hate ; 
Indeed, more proper to revenge than save ; 
A king whom in His wrath the Almighty gave 
For all the grace the landlord had allowed 
But made the Buzzard and the Pigeons proud, 
Gave time to fix their friends and to seduce th© 

crowd. 
They long their fellow-subjects to enthral, 
Their patron's promise into question call, 
And vainly think he meant to make them lords of alL 



THE HIND AND THE PANTHER. 175 

'• False fears their leaders failed not to suggest, 
As if the Doves were to be dispossest ! 
Nor sighs nor groans nor goggling eyes did want, 
For now the Pigeons, too, had learned to cant. 
The house of prayer is stocked with large increase, 
Nor doors nor windows can contain the press : 
For birds of every feather fill the abode ; 
Even Atheists out of envy own a Grod ; 
And, reeking from the stews, adulterers come, 
Like Groths and Vandals to demolish Rome. 
That Conscience, which to all their crimes was mute,. 
Now calls aloud and cries to persecute : 
No rigour of the laws to be released, 
And much the less, because it was their Lord's request. 
They thought it great their Sovereign to control, 
And named their pride nobility of soul. 

" 'Tis true, the Pigeons and their prince elect 
Were short of power their purpose to effect : 
But with their quills did all the hurt they could 
And cuffed the tender chickens from their food : 
And much the Buzzard in their cause did stir. 
Though naming not the patron, to infer. 
With all respect he was a gross idolater. 

*' But when the imperial owner did espy 
That thus they turned his grace to villainy, 
Not suffering wrath to discompose his mind, 
He strove a temper for the extremes to find, 
So to be just as he might still be kind : 
Then, all maturely weighed, pronounced a doom, 
Of sacred strength for every age to come. 
By this the Doves their wealth and state possess,. 
No rights infringed, but licence to oppress : 
Such power have they as factious lawyers long 
To crowns ascribed, that kings can do no wrongs 
But since his own domestic birds have tried 
The dire effects of their destructive pride, 
He deems that proof a measure to the rest, 



176 de,yden"s poems. 

Concluding well witMn his kingly breast 

His fowl of nature too unjustly were oppressed. 

He therefore makes all birds of every sect 

Free of his farm, with promise to respect 

Their several kinds alike, and equally protect. 

His gracious edict the same franchise yields 

To all the wild increase of woods and fields, 

And who in rocks aloof, and who in steeples builds ; 

To Crows the like impartial grace affords, 

Ajid Choughs and Daws, and such republic birds ; 

Secured with ample privilege to feed. 

Each has his district and his bounds decreed : 

Combined in common interest with his own, 

But not to pass the Pigeons' Rubicon. 

" Here ends the reign of this pretended Dove ; 
All prophecies accomplished from above, 
For Shiloh comes the sceptre to remove. 
Reduced from her imperial high abode, 
Like Dionysius to a private rod, 
The passive Church, that with pretended grace 
Did her distinctive mark in duty place, 
Now touched, reviles her Maker to his face. 

" What after happened is not hard to guess ; 
The small beginnings had a large increase, 
And arts and wealth succeed, the secret spoils of 

peace. 
■"Tis said the Doves repented, though too late 
Become the smiths of their own foolish fate : 
Nor did their owner hasten their ill hour. 
But, sunk in credit, they decreased in power : 
Like snows in warmth that mildly pass away, 
Dissolving in the silence of decay. 

The Buzzard, not content with equal place, 
Invites the feathered Nimrods of his race, 
To hide the thinness of their flock from sight, 
And all together make a seeming goodly flight : 
But each have separate interests of their own ; 



THE HIND AND THE PANTHER. 177 i 

Two Czars are one too many for a throne. i 

Nor can the usurper long abstain from food ; j 

Already he has tasted Pigeon's blood, | 

And may be tempted to his former fare, -i 
When this indulgent lord shall late to Heaven repair.i^ 
Bare benting times and moulting months may come, t 
"When lagging late they cannot reach their home ; 

Or rent in schism (for so their fate decrees) ;^ 

Like the tumultuous College of the Bees, J 

They fight their quarrel, by themselves opprest ; / 
The tyrant smiles below, and waits the falling feast." ) 

Thus did the gentle Hind her fable end, i 

Nor would the Panther blame it nor commend ; ' \ 

But, with affected yawnings at the close, .' 

Seemed to require her natural repose ; \ 

Por now the streaky light began to peep, ] 

And setting stars admonished both to sleep. A 

The dame withdrew, and wishing to her guest j 

The peace of Heavsn, betook herself to rest. \ 

Ten thousand angels on her slumbers wait i 

With glorious visions of her future state. ^ 



178 



MAG FLECKNOE; 

OR, 

A SATIRE ON THE TRUE BLUE PROTESTANT 
POET, T. S. 



All human things are subject to decay 
And, when Fate summons, monarchs must obey. 
This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, young 
Was called to empire and had governed long. 
In prose and verse was owned without dispute 
Through all the realms of Nonsense absolute. 
This aged prince, now flourishing in peace 
And blest with issue of a large increase, 
.Worn out with business, did at length debate 
To settle the succession of the state ; 
And pondering which of all his sons was fit 
To reign and wage immortal war with wit, 
Cried, " 'Tis resolved, for Nature pleads that he 
Should only rule who most resembles me. 
Shadwell alone my perfect image bears. 
Mature in dulness from his tender years ; 
Shadwell alone of all my sons is he 
Who stands confirmed in full stupidity. 
The rest to some faint meaning make pretence, 
But Shadwell never deviates into sense. 
Some beams of wit on other souls may fall, 
Strike through and make a lucid interval ; 
But Shad well's genuine night admits no ray, 
His rising fogs prevail upon the day : 
Besides, his goodly fabric fills the eye, 



MAC FLECKNOE. 179 

And seems designed for thoug-htless majesty, 
Thoughtless as monarch oaks that shade the plain 
And, spread in solemn state, supinely reign. 
Heywood and Shirley were but types of thee, 
Thou last great prophet of tautology. 
Even I, a dunce of more renown than they, 
Was sent before but to prepare thy way. 
And coarsely clad in Norwich drugget came 
To teach the nations in thy greater name. 
My warbling lute, -the lute I whilom strung, 
When to King John of Portugal I sung, 
Was but the prelude to that glorious day. 
When thou on silver Thames didst cut thy way, 
With well-timed oars before the royal barge. 
Swelled with the pride of thy celestial charge, 
And, big with hymn, commander of an host ; 
The like was ne'er in Epsom blankets tost. 
Methinks I see the new Arion sail, 
The lute still trembling underneath thy nail. 
At thy well-sharpened thumb from shore to shore 
The treble squeaks for fear, the basses roar ; 
About thy boat the little fishes throng, 
As at the morning toast that floats along. 
Sometimes, as prince of thy harmonious band, 
Thou wieldst thy papers in thy threshing hand. 
St. Andre's feet ne'er kept more equal time. 
Not even the feet of thy own ' Psyche's ' Rhyme : 
Though they in number as in sense excel, 
So just, so like tautology, they fell 
That, pale with envy, Singleton forswore 
The lute and sword which he in triumph bore, 
And vowed he ne'er would act Villerius more." 
Here stopped the good old sire and wept for joy, 
In silent raptures of the hopeful boy. 
All arguments, but most his plays, persuade 
That for anointed dulness he was made. 
Close to the walls which fair Augusta bind 



dryden's poems. 

(The fair Augusta much to fears inclined), 

An ancient fabric raised to inform the sight 

There stood of yore, and Barbican it hight ; 

A watch-tower once, but now, so fate ordains, 

Of all the pile an empty name remains ; 

From its old ruins brothel-houses rise. 

Scenes of lewd loves, and of polluted joys, 

Where their vast courts the mother-strumpets 

keep, 
And, undisturbed by watch, in silence sleep. 
Near these a. Nursery erects its head. 
Where queens are formed and future heroes bred. 
Where unfledged actors learn to laugh and cry, 
Where infant punks their tender voices try, 
And little Maximins the gods defy. 
Great Fletcher never treads in buskins here, 
Nor greater Jonson dares in socks appear ; 
But gentle Simkin just reception finds 
Amidst this monument of vanished minds ; 
Pure clinches the suburban muse affords, 
And Panton waging harmless war with words. 
Here Flecknoe, as a place to fame well known, 
Ambitiously designed his Shadwell's throne. 
For ancient Decker prophesied long since 
That in this pile should reign a mighty prince, 
Born for a scourge of wit and flail of sense, 
To whom true dulness should some " Psyches " 

owe, 
But worlds of " Misers " from his pen should flow 5 
"■ Humourists " and Hypocrites it should produce, 
Whole Raymond families and tribes of Bruce. 

Now empress Fame had published the renown 
Of Shadwell's coronation through the town. 
Roused by report of fame, the nations meet 
From near Bunhill and distant Watling Street, 
No Persian carpets spread the imperial way, 
But scattered limbs of mangled poets lay. 



MAC FLECKNOE. 181 

Much Heywood, Shirley, Ogleby there lay, 
But loads of Shadwell almost choked the way. 
Bilked stationers for yeomen stood prepared, 
And Herringman was captain of the guard. 
The hoary prince in majesty appeared, 
High on a throne of his own labours reared. 
At his right hand our young Ascanius sat, 
Rome's other hope and pillar of the state. 
His brows thick fogs instead of glories grace, 
, And lambent dulness played around his face. 
As Hannibal did to the altars come, 
Sworn by his sire a mortal foe to Rome ; 
So Shadwell swore, nor should his vow be vain, 
That he till death true dulness would maintain ; 
And, in his father's right and realm's defence, 
Ne'er to have peace with wit nor truce with sense. 
The king himself the sacred unction made, 
As king by ofl&ce and as priest by trade. 
In his sinister hand, instead of ball. 
He placed a mighty mug of potent ale ; 
" Love's Kingdom " to his right he did convey, 
At once his sceptre and his rule of sway ; 
Whose righteous lore the Prince had practised young, 
And from whose loins recorded "Psyche " sprung. 
His temples, last, with poppies were o'erspread, 
That nodding seemed to consecrate his head. 
Just at that point of time, if fame not lie, 
On his left hand twelve reverend owls did fly. 
So Romulus, 'tis sung, by Tiber's brook, 
Presage of sway from twice six valtures took. 
The admiring throng loud acclamations make 
And omens of his future empire take. 
The sire then shook the honours of his head, 
And from his brows damps of oblivion shed 
Full on the filial dulness : long he stood, 
Repelling from his breast the raging Grod ; 
At length burst out in this prophetic mood : 



DRYDENS POEMS. 

" Heavens bless my son ! from Ireland let him reign 
To far Barbadoes on tbe western main ; 
Of bis dominion may no end be known 
And greater than bis father's be bis throne ; 
Beyond ' Love's Kingdom ' let bim stretch his pen 1 *' 
He paused, and all the people cried "Amen." 
Then thus continued be : " My son, advance 
Still in new impudence, new ignorance. 
Success let others teach, learn thou from me 
Pangs without birth and fruitless industry. 
Let ' Virtuosos ' in five years be writ, 
Yet not one thought accuse thy toil of wit. 
Let gentle George in triumph tread the stage. 
Make Dorimant betray, and Loveit rage ; 
Let Gully, Cockwood, Fopling, charm the pit, 
And in their folly show the writer's wit. 
Yet still thy fools shall stand in thy defence 
And justify their author's want of sense. 
Let them be all by thy own model made 
Of dulness and desire no foreign aid. 
That they to future ages may be known, 
Not copies drawn, but issue of thy own. 
Nay, let thy men of wit too be the same, 
All full of thee and differing but in name. 
But let no alien Sedley interpose 
To lard with wit thy hungry Epsom prose. 
Aad when false flowers of rhetoric thou wouldst 

cull. 
Trust nature, do not labour to be dull ; 
But write thy best and top ; and in each line 
Sir Formal's oratory will be thine. 
Sir Formal, though unsought, attends thy quill 
And does thy northern dedications fill. 
Nor let false friends seduce thy mind to fame 
By arrogating Jonson's hostile name ; 
Let father Flecknoe fire thy mind with praise 
And uncle Ogleby thy envy raise. 



MAC FLECKNOii. 183 < 

'i 

Thou art my blood, where Jonson has no part : '^ 

What share have we in, nature or in art ? .| 

Where did his wit on learning- fix a brand "^ 

And rail at arts he did not understand ? ' '■. 

Where made he love in Prince Nicander's vein ^ 

Or swept the dust in Psyche's humble strain ? i 

When did his Muse from Fletcher scenes purloin, -i 

As thou whole Etherege dost transfuse to thine ? • '; 

But so transfused as oil on waters flow, *' 

His always floats above, thine sinks below. ■ 

This is thy province, this thy wondrous way, i 

New humours to invent for each new play : ' f. 

This is that boasted bias of thy mind, f 

By which one way to dulness 'tis inclined, -, 

Which makes thy writings lean on one side still, ■ ; 

And, in all changes, that way bends thy will. ■; 

Nor let thy mountain belly make pretence | 

Of likeness ; thine's a tympany of sense, '' 

A tun of man in thy large bulk is writ, ! 

But sure thou art but a kilderkin of wit. , ; 

Like mine, thy gentle numbers feebly creep ; 1 

Thy tragic Muse gives smiles, thy comio sleep. ^ 

With whate'er gall thou setst thyself to wrijbe, i 

Thy inoffensive satires never bite ; .| 

In thy felonious heart though venom lies, ;^ 

It does but touch thy Irish pen, and dies. } 

Thy genius calls thee not to purchase fame ^ 

In keen Iambics, but mild Anagram. \ 

Leave writing plays, ^nd choose for thy command -v^ 

Some peaceful province in Acrostic land. : 

There thou mayest wings display and altars raise, j 

And torture one poor word ten thousand ways ; ■ 1 

Or, if thou wouldst thy different talents suit, J 

Set thy own songs, and sing them to thy lute." ■? 

He said, but his last words were scarcely heard, '; 

For Bruce and Longville had a trap prepared, "^ 

And down they sent the yet declaiming bard. ;: 



184 DRYDfeN'S POEMS. 

Sinking- lie left his drugg-et robe behind, 
Borne upwards by a subterranean wind. 
The mantle fell to the young prophet's part 
With double portion of his father's art. 



TO MY DEAR FRIEND, 
MR. CONGREVE, 

ON HIS COMEDY CALLED "THE DOUBLE DEALER." 



Well then, the promised hour is come at last, 

The present age of wit obscures the past : 

Strong were our sires, and as they fought they writ. 

Conquering with force of arms and dint of wit : 

Theirs was the giant race before the flood ; 

And thus when Charles returned, our empire stood. 

Like Janus, he the stubborn soil manured, 

With rules of husbandry the rankness cured ; 

Tamed us to manners, when the stage was rude. 

And boisterous English wit with art endued. 

Our ago was cultivated thus at length, 

But what we gained in skill we lost in strength. 

Our builders were with want of genius curst ; 

The second temple was not like the first ; 

Till you, the best Vitruvius, come at length, 

Our beauties equal, but excel our strength. 

Firm Doric pillars found your solid base, 

The fair Corinthian crowns the higher space ; 

Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace. 

In easy dialogue is Fletcher's praise ; 

He moved the mind, but had not power to raise. 

Great Jonson did by strength of judgment please, 



TO MR. CONGilEVE. 185 

Yet doubling Fletcher's force, he wants his ease. 

In differing- talents both adorned their age, 

One for the study, t'other for the stage. 

But both to Congreve justly shall submit, 

One matched in judgment, both o'ermatched in wit. 

In him all beauties of this age we see, 

Etherege his courtship, Southern's purity, 

The satire, wit, and strength of manly Wycherly. 

All this in blooming youth you have achieved ; 

Nor are your foiled contemporaries grieved. 

So much the sweetness of your manners move, 

"We cannot envy you, because we love. 

Fabius might joy in Scipio, when he saw 

A beardless Consul made against the law, 

And join his suffrage to the votes of Rome, 

Though he with Hannibal was overcome. 

Thus old Romano bowed to Raphael's fame, 

And scholar to the youth he taught became. 

that your brows my laurel had sustained ! 
Well had I been deposed, if you had reigned : 
The father had descended for the son, 
For only you are lineal to the throne. 
Thus, when the State one Edward did depose, 
A greater Edward in his room arose : 
But now, not I, but poetry is curst ; 
For Tom the second reigns like Tom the first. 
But let them not mistake my patron's part 
Nor call his charity their own desert. 
Yet this I prophesy, — Thou shalt be seen, 
Though with some short parenthesis between. 
High on the throne of wit, and, seated there, 
Not mine — that's little — but thy laurel wear. 
Thy first attempt an early promise made ; 
That early promise this has more than paid. 
So bold, yet so judiciously you dare, 
That your least praise is to be regular. 
Time, place, and action may with pains be wrought, 



deyden's poems. 

But genius must be born, and never can be taught. 
This is your portion, this your native store : 
Heaven, that but once was prodigal before. 
To Shakespeare gave as much ; she could, not give 
him more. 
Maintain your post : that's all the fame you need ; 
For 'tis impossible you should proceed. 
Already I am worn with cares and age, 
And just abandoning the ungrateful stage : 
Unprofitably kept at Heaven's expense, 
I live a rent-charge on His providence : 
But you, whom every Muse and grace adorn, 
Whom I foresee to better fortune born, 
Be kind to my remains ; and oh, defend, 
Against your judgment, your departed friend I 
Let not the insulting foe my fame pursue, 
But shade those laurels which descend to you : ^ 
And take for tribute what these lines express ; 
Tou merit more, nor could my love do less. 



LINES PRINTED UNDER THE 
ENGRAVED PORTRAIT OF MILTON, 

IN TONSON'S FOLIO EDITION OP THE "PARADISE LOST," 1688. 



Theee poets, in three distant ages born, 
<lreece, Italy, and England did adorn. 
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed, 
The next in majesty, in both the last : 
The force of Nature could no farther go ; 
To make a third she joined the former two. 



IS!^', 



ALEXANDER'S FEAST' 

OR, THE POWER OF MUSIC. 

A SONG IN HONOCTR OP ST. CECILIA'S DAT, 1697. 



1. 

'TwAS at the royal feast for Persia won 
By Philip's warlike son : 
Aloft in awful state 
The godlike hero sate 
On his imperial throne ; 
His valiant peers were placed around ; 
Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound 

(So should desert in arms be crowned). 
The lovely Thais, by his side. 
Sate like a blooming' Eastern bride, 
In flower of youth and beauty's pride. 
Happy, happy, happy pair ! 
None but the brave, 
None but the brave, 
None but the brave deserves the fair. 

CHOEUS. 

Happy, happy, happy pair ! 
None but the brave, 
None but the brave. 
None but the brave deserves the fair, 

2. 

Timotheus, placed on high 
Amid the tuneful quire, 
With flying fingers touched the lyre : 
The trembling notes ascend the sky, 
And heavenly joys; inspire. 



188 deyden's poems. 

The song began from Jove, 
Who left his blissful seats above 
(Such is the power of mighty love). 
A dragon's fiery form belied the god : 
Sublime on radiant spires he rode, 
When he to fair Olympia pressed : 
And while he sought her snowy breast, 
Then round her slender waist he curled, • 

And stamped an image of himself, a sovereign of the 
world. 
The listening crowd admire the lofty sound, 
A present deity, they shout around ; 
A present deity the vaulted roofs rebound : 
With ravished ears 
The monarch hears. 
Assumes the god. 
Affects to nod, 
And seems to shake the spheres. 

CHORUS. 

With ravished ears 
The monarch hears, 
Assumes the god. 
Affects to nod, 
And seems to shake the spheres. 

3. 

The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician sung^ 
Of Bacchus ever fair, and ever young. 
The jolly god in triumph comes ; 
Sound the trumpets, beat the drums ; 
Flushed with a purple grace 
He shows his honest face : 
Now give the hautboys breath ; he comes, he comes. 
Bacchus, ever fair and young. 
Drinking joys did first ordain ; 



ALEXANDER'S FEAST. 189 

Bacclius' blessings are a treasure, 
Drinking is the soldier's pleasure ; 
Rich the treasure, 
Sweet the pleasure, 
Sweet is pleasure after pain. 

CHOEUS. 

Bacchus' blessings are a treasure, 
Drinking is the soldier's pleasure ; 
Rich the treasure, 
" Sweet the pleasure, 

Sweet is pleasure after pain. 

4. 

Soothed with the sound the king grew vain ; 
Fought all his battles o'er again ; 
And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew 
the slain. 
The master saw the madness rise, 
His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes ; 
And while he heaven and earth defied, 
Changed his hand, and checked his pride. 
He chose a mournful Muse. 
Soft pity to infuse ; 
He sung Darius great and good, 

By too severe a fate, 
Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen, 

Fallen from his high estate. 
And weltering in his blood ; 
Deserted at his utmost need 
By those his former bounty fed f 
On the bare earth exposed he lies, 
With not a friend to close his eyes. 
With downcast looks the joyless victor sate, 
Revolving in his altered soul 

The various turns of chance below ; 
And, now and then, a &igh he stole, 
And tears began to flow. 



190 detden's poems. 

CHOEUS, 

Revolving in his altered soul 

The various turns of chance below 1 

And, now and then, a sigh he stole, 
And tears began to flow. 

.5. 
The mighty master smiled to see 
That love was in the next degree ; 
'Twas but a kindred sound to move, 
For pity melts the mind to love. ' 
Softly sweet in Lydian measures, 
Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures. 
War, he sung, is toil and trouble ; 
Honour but an empty bubble ; 
- Never ending, still beginning, 
Fighting still, and still destroying : 

If the world be worth thy winning, 
Think, think it worth enjoying : 
Lovely Thais sits beside thee, 
Take the good the gods provide thee. 
The many rend the skies with loud applause ; 
So Love was crowned, but Music won the cause. 
The prince, unable to conceal his pain, 
G-azed on the fair 
Who caused his care, 
And sighed and looked, sighed and looked, 
Sighed and looked, and sighed again ; 
At length, with love and wine at once oppressed, 
The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast. 

CHOEDS. 

The prince, unable to conceal his pain. 
Gazed on the fair 
Who caused his care, 
And sighed and looked, sighed and looked, 
Sighed and looked, and sighed again ; 



ALEXANDER'S FEAST. 191 

At length, witli love and wine at once oppress*^, 
The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast. 

6. 

Now strike the golden lyre again ; 
A louder yet, and yet a louder strain. 
Break his bands of sleep asunder. 
And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder. 
Hark, hark, the horrid sound 
Has raised up his head ; 
As awaked from the. dead, 
And amazed, he stares around. 
Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries, 
See the Furies arise ; 
See the snakes that they rear, 
How they hiss in their hair, 
And the sparkles that flash from their eyes I 
Behold a ghastly band, 
Each a torch in his hand ! 
Those are G-recian ghosts, that in battle were slain. 
And unburied remain 
Inglorious on the plain : 
G-ive the vengeance due 
To the valiant crew. 
Behold how they toss their torches on high, 

How they point to the Persian abodes. 
And glittering temples of their hostile gods. 
The princes applaud with a furious joy ; 
And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy ; 
Thais led the way, 
To light him to his prey. 
And, like another Helen, fired another Troy. 

CHOEUS. 

And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy 

Thais led the way. 

To light him to his prey. 
And, like another Helen, fired another Troy. 



192 drydbn's poems. 

7 
Thus long ago, 
Ere heaving bellows learned to blow, 
While organs yet were mute, 
Tiraotheus, to his breathing flute 
And sounding lyre, 
Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire. 
At last divine Cecilia came, 
Inventress of the vocal frame ; 
The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store, 
Enlarged the former narrow bounds, 
And added length to solemn sounds, 
With Nature's Mother-wit, and arts unknown before. 
Let old Timotheus yield the prize, 

Or both divide the crown : 
He raised a mortal to the skies ; 
She drew an angel down. 

GEAND CHORUS. 

At last divine Cecilia came, 

Inventress of the vocal frame ; 
The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store. 

Enlarged the former narrow bounds, 

And added length to solemn sounds. 
With Nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before. 

Let old Timotheus yield the prize, 
Or both divide the crown : 

He raised a mortal to the skies ; 
She drew an angel down. 



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